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15 



5EYEN MEXICAN CIIIES 



By JOHN S. HENDAIL. 



<TH«Des|^a|gcWMCfL 



New Orleans, La. 

PICAYUNE JOB PRINT. 

1906. 



lioward Aiem. Lib, 



I'U 



k \ 



{ 



SEVEN MEXICAN CITIES 



CDHAF^-TEFR I 

The Land of the Montezumas as a Summer Resort — Pleasures of 
Travel by Sea — Sanitation of the Mexican Ports^^— Tampico 
as a Gateway to Fairyland — Scenic Beauties of Northeastern 
Mexico—Commercial Importance of Tampico— President Diaz's 
Far-Reaching: Plans for the Future— Magnificent Wharf Al- 
ready Erected in Tampico — Extensive Municipal Improve- 
ments Under Way and Others Under Consideration 
— Educational Facilities in Tampico — Amusemerits.^The De- 
lights of Tarpon Fishing- — The Greatest Place in the World 
for Isaak Walton's Disciples. i^' . ^ 



rHE enterprise of the Mexican- 
American Steamship Company 
in establishing a passenger 
service bet"ween New Orleans 
and the r)orts on the east 
coast of Mexdco has opened to 
the traveler one of the most 
attractive sections of this 
continent. Northeastern Mexico has, 
of course, been acfcessible for twenty 
years over the lines of the Mexican 
Central Railroad, and doub-tless in 
that time hundreds of adventurous 
spirits have drifted thither in quest 
of the picturesque.. But not till re- 
cently has the tide of travel really 
turned in that direction, especially 
from the southern sections of the 
United States. The journey west- 
ward through Texas, before the 
Mexican border is reached at El Paso, 
suffices to deter many from under- 
taking so long a trip overland. Texas, 
it must be confessed, whatever 
its attractions — and they are 
great — in the w^ay of agri- 
culture, oil and minerals is from the 
scenic point of view not specially in- 
viting; nor does the northernmost 
border of the Mexican Republic offer 
any special inducements to attract 
tliither tlie average sightseer. And 
yet there is no portion of North 
America which so richly repays the 
trouble of travel as those portions 
of Mexico which, up to within the 
last few months,- have been accessible 
only by means of the somewhat for- 
bidding and inconvenient route just 
described. 

All of these drawbacks ^ Were re- 
moved' at once' when the Mexlcan- 
Ameiiean Steaniship Company, appre- 
ciating the opportunity which lay be- 



fore it, equipped its fleet for the ac- 
commodation •, of passengers. ,It is 
possible to-day to board-any one of 
the four handsome ships which this 
corporation operates out "of New Or- 
leans, Port Arthur and Galveston, 
and within four days arrive at 
Tampico— wiiich is, to say, at the 
portals of fairyland. For Mexico is 
a country of wonders, so utterly and 
incurably foreign to all .the thoughts 
and customs that maintain in our own 
land that it must remain perpetually 
a fascination, a surprise and a de- 
light to such of our people as go 
thither. In spite of tlie earnest 
efforts which the Mexican GoverK- 
ment is making to modernize the Re- 
public, and which are resulting in the 
construction of some of the most 
comprehensive and expensive mu- 
nicipal improvements in the world, 
the land has a character of its own 
that cannot well be altered. Mexico 
may be made accessible, sanitary and 
commercial, but it has alvrays been 
unique, and unique it will remain 
to the end of its history. 

The voyage from New Orleans to 
Tampico is one of the most enjoyable 
experiences that can fall to the lot 
of the vacation-seeker. The vessels 
I f the Mexican-American Steamship 
Company have been expressly de- 
signed and built for the traffic, and 
represent the very best work of the 
Norwegian mechanics and naval 
architects. The City of Tampico, on 
which I had recently the pleasure of 
making the trip, is typical of the 
rest. She is a stately steel ship, 270 
feet long and thirty-seven feet wide, 
with a cargo capacity of 2,500 tons; 
Her powerful engines drive her 



Seven Mexican Cities. 



through the water at a speed ranging 
from ten to twel't^e knots. Less than 
ten months have elapsed since she 
■was released from the ways at 
Bergen and began her long voyage to 
New Orleans. She was built along- 
side of the Corinto, another fine 
vessel running betw^een New Orleans 
and Nicaragua, and is in every re- 
spect as creditable an example of 
ship-building as that handsome boat. 
She has twelve comfortably fitted-up 



as there is plenty of room to walk 
about and obtain the exercise neces- 
sary to your temperament. The deck 
chairs are numerous and inviting; 
the awnings make a grateful shade, 
and there is nothing to do but to 
dream happy dreams and wait for the 
steward's gong to summon one below 
to three appetizing meals each day. 

One of the great excellencies of 
the City of Tampico is the fact 
that her construction is such as to 




The Noon Hour On the Government Wharf, Tampico. 



cabins, six of which' open into jv 
spacious saloon beautifully finished 
In carved white mahogany and up- 
holstered in' velvet. Electric lights 
and fans are everywhere. Moreoye.ri 
there is a spacious promenade deck-, 
ampler in its dimfensipns than on^ 
would believe possible from the, ton- 
nage of the sijip. on which, the Pas- 
senger may ■ spend ^' the long, lazy, 
luxurious days of the voyage, revel- 
ing in the ' health-giving ocean 
breezes. ' If' you "^rfe, .O'f a more- 
active habit than the aver- 
age traveler, you need not ma- 
terially change your custom of living. 



make it almost impossible for her to 
roll much even in a heaVy sea^ The 
flat bottom is supplemented "by un • 
usually- wide bilge -keels, the united 
effect of which is to keep the vessel 
steady* the very action Of the tvaves 
againsiti one i side being instfum-ental 
in counteracting-.- their own inH>«Ises 
from the opposite side. The result- iS" 
that seassickn.ess is practically u-n • 
kqow-n on -bpardj- 'In tiie summer 
ti.i>ie,- jespepially,- When .the fGulf fit 
Mexico is a,t its,: peacefuUest, ..aH<l 
When the voyage is- most delightful 
in every way, the agony of mal-de- 
mer is hardly to be reckoned as 



Seven Mexican Cities. 



amonff the possibilities of the trip. 
What glorious appetites result! One 
does full justice to every meal, all 
the way to Tampico — and beyond 
that port, too, if the voyage extends, 
as ours did. to Vera Cruz and Pro- 
greso, and so on kack to New Or- 
leans, a distance of nearly 2,000 
miles. A word should be said in 
passing of the excellent cuisine of 
these vessels — no ^5mall item in the 
comfort of the voyage, and one in 
which they excel most of the lines 
operating south of New York, and 
compare favorably with the Trans- 
atlantic liners. 

The average traveler hesitates to 
undertake a voyage to Mexico in 
the summer time. Most of us are 
too busy in the winter to go then. 
And yet, if the fact were only gen- 
erally understood, the summer is of 
all seasons the ideal one to make the 
trip. The winter months in Mexico 
are dry. Little or no rain falls; the 
clear, pure air of the high interior 
plateaux is bracing and invigorat- 
ing, no doubt, but the unbroken 
warmth, tliough never really exces- 
sive, is not to be compared to the de- 
licious temperature that prevails 
from, say, April to September, the 
so-called "rainy season." This is 
one of Nature's many blessings to 
the tropics — the rains. They fall 
generally in the morning or late 
afternoon, and last rarely more than 
a few minutes, leaving the atmos- 
phere washed free of dust and heat, 
delightfully c-ool and fresh. It is al- 
ways warm on the sea coast, but in 
the sumnier months Tampico, Vera 
Cruz and Progreso are never any 
hotter than New Orleans, and rarely 
as hot, considering the fact that 
after 10 o'clock in the forenoon there 
is invariably -a strong- sea breeze 
blowing. This, combined with the 
rain, robs the sun's energy of most 
of its effect. In the interior, alti- 
tudes varying from 4,000 to &,000 feet 
insure even more agreeable summer 
temperatures, and the traveler who 
hesitates to go to Mexico by the sea- 
route no'svadays, for fear of the heat, 
is simply denying himself one of the 
greatest of pleasures for absolutely 
no reason. 

If, however, he holds aloof on the 
plea that the Mexican ports are 
dangerous to health in the summei' 
time, his excuse is even less valid. 
The Mexican Government is spend- 
ing millions of dollars in sanitating- 
these very places. The work is be- 
ing done with the absolute thorough- 
ness -Rrhich only a benevolent des- 
potism can command. In the United 
States -we are accustoi-ned to public 
enterprises executed in a hasty and 
slipshod manner by irresponsible 
contractors; but Mexico does not 



permit such things. Graft there may 
be; that is to be expected, but the 
results must not be skimped. Thus, 
at Tampico, Vera Cruz, and within a 
short time at Progreso, also, there 
are now, or will soon be, completed 
some of the grandest sanitary en- 
terprises ever undertaken on this 
Continent, the benefits of which 
have already been shown in the re- 
duced death rates and the bettering 
of local disease-conditions. Tam- 
pico is now as safe a port for an 
American to visir in the summer 
time as New York or San Francisco; 
Vera Cruz, if not In the same con- 
dition, is rapidly approaching that 
ideal, and even there the risk, if ap- 
preciable, is so slight that no intel- 
ligent person can find in it sufficient 
cause to deter him from a visit. 
Progreso is perfectly healthy. Alto- 
gether, the coast cities of Mexico 
at this season of the year are as safe 
as those of the United States, and 
in many cases safer. 

People are beginning to realize 
these facts. The passenger traffic of 
the Mexican American Steamship 
Company, , which was gratifyingly 
large last winter, is heavier to-day 
than it was six months ago, and this 
in spite of hot weather and the quar- 
antine. The former is actually a 
myth at sea and in Mexico; as for 
the latter, the inconveniences which 
are alleged to • be connected there- 
with are largely imaginary. Thanks 
to the courteous anct accommodating 
officials at the Quarantine Station, the 
detention at the mouth of the river 
has been shorn of most of its dis- 
agreeable features, and means for 
the home-coming voyager merely a 
chance to prolong a journey so de- 
lightful that its ending can only be 
contemplated with regret. 

Granting, then, that there is every 
reason why a man "off on a holiday" 
should spend his vacation in Mexico, 
what route should he pursue after 
leaving the ship? Tampico is the 
natural gateway to northeastern 
Mexico. Thence almost due west- 
-ward runs the line of the Mexican 
Central P.ailroad. through the rich 
mining town of San Luis Potosi to 
the famous health resort of Agufts 
Calientes. This is a distance of 
about 300 miles, and most of the 
way lies through scenery so beauti- 
ful that it alone is worth all the cost 
find trouble to the trip. Nothing in 
Europe can equal the magnificent 
mountain landscapes between Tam- 
pico and San Luis Potosi, where the 
railroad climbs by steep gradients 
from the tropical lowlands to the 
high Mexican plateau and the tem- 
perate zone. Mexico has much 
grand and memorable scenery, but 
there is little to compare with this 




Seven Mexican Cities. 



first impressive glimpse of the 
Sierras. 

At Ag-uas Calientes the railroad 
connects with the main .lin6 of the 
Mexican Central, and the traveler, if 
well advised, turns southward to the 
Capital, lingering- :on his w^y in 
first one and then another' of ^ the 
score of historic and beautiful little 
cities strung along the route like 
jewels on a string. Thus, progres- 
sing slowly from Aguas Calfentes to 
Silao, and from Silao to Marfll, and 
from Marfil to Guanajuato,' and 
thence to Queretaro, one comes at 
last to the splendid Mexican Capital, 
his mind stored with superb pictures, 
wonderful legends, and' fragments of 
history scarcely less wonderful than 
the legend,. A few days In the City 
of Mexico, and then one finds it 
profitable to go by daylight down 
to Vera Cruz, over the Mexican Rail- 
road, the oldest line in the country, 
constructed with immense toil and 
at enormous expense through scene- 
ry of such grandeur that words can- 
not describe it. Vera Cruz is worth 
a day, not so much for what it is 
now, but for what it has been in the 
past, and for what it is going to be 
in the future, and then the ship will 
bear you to Progreso, in Yucatan, 
one of the least known sections of 
the Republic, where there is much 
to see and learn. * 

This was, in brief, the itinerary of 
the tour which we made. Leaving 
New Orleans on the City of Tampico 
on June 16, the morning of the 20th 
found us off the mouth of the Panuco 
River, and within a few miles of 
Tampico. The voyage was just what 
I have painted it in the enthusiastic 
paragraphs written above — an all- 
to-brief excursion over smiling seas, 
under a cloudless sky, in surround- 
ings where every want had been an- 
ticipated, and every possible comfort 
provided. The master of the ship 
did much to make the voyage pleas- 
ant. Captain Pr. Olsen is worth 
knowing for his own sake. He is 
one of fSe youngest men in command 
of a ship who trade in and out of 
New Orleans. He is the son of Captain 
B. D. Olsen, the Commodore of the 
Mexican-American's fleet, himself a 
veteran in the passenger service; The 
younger Captain is a man of unusu- 
al gifts, speaking English, Spanish 
and German, in addition to his own 
tongue, a seaman of large experience, 
a gentleman of culture an-d reflne- 
TTjent, and one whose efforts to pro- 
mote the comfort of the ship's 
guests are unremitting. 

The approach to the city of Tam- 
pico is full of interest. The incoming 
Steamer enters the Panuco River 



through the massive jetties con- 
structed a few years ago by the 
Mexican Government. The huge 
blocks of stone out of which this 
splendid work is. constructed lift 
tlieir' irregular shapes picturesquely 
above the" dark green surface of the 
water. Powerful dredges, two of 
which are reckoned among the 
largest now in use in any part of the 
w^orld, are busy here and at 
other parts of the harbor, the depth 
of which is by Ihis means kept at 
thirty feet. On either hand the 
shores are flat .and marshy, rising, 
however, as the steamer continues 
its way towards the city into a suc- 
cession of low, wooded hills. Of the 
city itself nothing is seen until six 
or seven miles of the winding river 
have been traversed, and various lit- 
tle outlying settlements, such as La 
Barra, the pilot station, and a famous 
resort in the summer tiine. and the 
quarantine buildings — have been 
passed. Then, suddenly a curve in 
the stream is rounded, a score of 
richly-colored vi^alls lift themselves 
into tlie dazzling morning sunshine, 
and palm trees and flagstaffs an- 
nounce that the traveler's destination 
has been reached. 

The ship comes to anchor along- 
side the magnificent steel wharf 
recently completed by the Federal 
Government at a cost of a million 
dollars. This structure, 2,800 feet 
long, and capable of accommodat- 
ing seven vessels at once, is an in- 
structive spectacle for the stranger's 
eye, proving- the wise paternalism 
of an enlightened government, which 
is gradually equipping, not Tampico 
only, but all of the gulf ports, with 
tlie best modern facilities for the 
handling of commerce and for the 
management of quarantine and other 
matters connected -witli sliipping. 
The great wharf at Tampico replaces 
a wooden structure built and burned 
in 1898. Fearful of another disaster, 
the new structure, which was prompt- 
ly begun, is of steel and concrete, 
supported on eleven rows of con- 
crete-filled steel caissons eight feet 
in diameter, resting in their turn 
upon piles forty-five feet long. Ships 
from all parts of the world and of 
the largest size are expeditiously 
handled at this wharf, which virould do 
credit to an American city of ten 
times the population and a hundred 
times the fame of this little Mexican 
port. That so creditable a work 
should have been accomplished with- 
out publicity, almost without at- 
tracting attention, even from the 
classes most interested, is charac- 
teristic of the remarkable enter- 
prises that are afoot all around the 
gulf, wherever the authority of Pres- 
ident Diaz extends. The far-reach- 



Seven Mexican CiTiiiS. 



ing plans which that able executive 
has conceived and is now executing 
are more comprehensive than is 
known in the United States, and are 
bound to have an enormous effect 
upon the future prosperity of his 
country. The good effects are al- 
ready felt in Tampico, and when the 
numerous other improvements that 
are contemplated in the city itself 
shall have been finished will make 
of that city a show place and a model 
well worth imitating in our own 
boastedly superior land. 

A part of this general scheme of 
improving the port of Tampico is 
the canal which is now being con- 
structed between the Panuco and the 
I.aguna of Tuxpan. When completed, 
this will be about ten miles in length, 
but will open up over 110 miles of 
fertile coast country and bring to 
Tampico new supplies of fustic and 
other native produce, the exports, of 
v/hich have begun to decline. The 
Government has now at work in the 
canal a large bucket dredge of the 
best modern type, and progress is 
being made at a reasonably rapid 
rate. It opens, a placid and sedge- 
bordered little thread of green water, 
on the southern bank of the Panuco, 
not far from the hill which shelters 
Pueblo Viejo, the "old city" of Tam- 
pico. For Tampico did not always 
stand on the northern bank of the 
Panuco. In fact, the city was re- 
moved to its present location about 
the year 1823. 

Up to that time the various States 
of the Mexican union maintained 
custom-houses at their frontiers, and 
collected duties on the local traffic. 
As soon as the Federal Government 
felt powerful enough, the custom- 
house of the State of Tamaulipas, 
which till 1823 had been located at 
Alta Mura, about fifteen miles fur- 
ther up the Panuco, was transferred 
to the site now occupied by the city. 
Naturally, being across the river 
from Pueblo Viejo, the population of 
the elder town drifted gradually to 
the new one, where all the business 
was being done; so that to-day Pueb- 
lo Viejo numbers only about 2,000 
people. Historically, it is much 
more interesting than its youthful 
rival. Located upon the margin oH 
one of those numerous estuaries that 
dot the country around Tampico, it 
was a village as far back as the days 
of Ponce de Leon and Hernando de 
Soto. The former came here search- 
ing for the Fountain of Youth, which 
he imagined he found in a spring 
that still -gushes forth, pure anl 
sparkling, from the rocks on the 
hillside. A large bottling establish- 
irent was built near the spring some 
time ago by an enthusiast, who hoped 



to . become wealthy by selling tlie 
water, but the enterprise was unsuc- 
cessful, and the edifice is now de- 
serted; but the refreshing- current 
flows on as bright and consoling a.+ 
in the day of the gallant Spanish ad- 
venturer. De Soto never came to Tam - 
pico in person, but his weary follow- 
ers made a landfall here when, in' 
their crazy barks, they crossed the 
gulf after the death of their daring 
leader and the discovery of tiie 
mouth of the Mississippi River. 

The history of the new city of Tam - 
pico contains only one incident of 
real interest: behind the town, to the- 
north, are pointed out the heights ort 
which the American forces planted 
tl^eir artillery when, during the Mex- 
ican war, they advanced upon the- 
port, flushed with the brilliant vic- 
tories at Monterey and Victoria, 
Tampico rell an easy prey to the- 
atmy under Worth and Patterson,, 
and the American troops occupied the 
Iijace for some months, until thtiy 
rr arched southward, to share in the 
siege of Vera Cruz. There was some 
fighting, of course, during the in- 
terminable Mexican civil wars, but 
that always transpired at some dis- 
tance from the 'own, which seems to- 
have enjoyed a fortune unusual 
among Mexican cities — fireedom from 
blood letting and the turmoil of ac- 
tual combat in its streets. 

Along educational and cultural 
lines generally Tampico is mak- 
ing progress. There are two good 
religious schools, one a Catholic in- 
stitution conducted by sisters from- 
San Antonio, Tex., and the (»ther a 
Protestant establishment, at the head 
of which is the United States Vice 
Consul, Mr. Pressly. The public 
schools are numerous and useful, but 
the curriculum is limited. The city 
has enacted compulsory education 
laws, and a truant officer, armeJ 
with a switch, which he often has 
occasion to use, finds himself busily- 
employed rounding up recalcitrant 
youngsters and driving them to their 
books. In all the scho61s the sexes 
are separated. Among the older mem- 
bers of the community literary tastes- 
and occupations are not conspicu- 
ously popular. They rely for mental 
aliment upon the daily newspapers 
from Monterey and Mexico City. They 
have access also to two weekly pa- 
pers, published in , Tampico, one ir« 
English and the other in Spanish, 
the former under the editorial man- 
agement of C. S. Warner, a Georgian. 
By way of amusement there are cock 
fights and the theatre. During the 
winter there are seasons of opera, 
usually limited to eiglit or ten per- 
formances, when the classic reper- 
toire is rendered. Of course these 
performances are scarcely up to the 



Seven Mexican Cities. 



metropolitan standard, but in near- 
ly every company one or two good 
voices go far to redeem the enter- 
tainment from mediocrity and to 
compensate for the inevitable defi- 
ciencies of the scenery. The favorite 
theatrical entertainment, however is 
the "Zarzuela," a sort of Spanish 
vaudeville. Formerly bull fighting 
w^as popular, but the poor quality of 
the "quadrillas" ultimately disgusted 
the population, and one Sunday in 
1898 an indignant audience expressed 
its disapprobation of the quality of 
the spectacle by wrecking the bull- 
ring. Since then professional bull 
■fighting has ceased in Tampico, nor is 
there much chance of this gory en- 
tertainment being revived. Of late 
there have been some bull fights 
given by amateurs, in which neither 
Tjull nor horse suffered any damage, 
but these enterprises have been of 
a character to excite the ridicule of 
the audience rather than the censure 
■of the judicious. "Are you sure it 
isn't a cow?-" asked one wag at a 
recent performance of the kind; and 
that humorously pathetic inquiry ex- 
presses quite accurately the prevail- 
ing sentiment in Tampico regarding 
the sport. 

The people do not showrnuch in- 
terest in foreign sports either. They 
have not taken to baseball or golf 
yet. The visitor to the city, how- 
ever, can find both entertainment and 
excitement, if he w^ants either, in 
fishing for tarpon at the city 



wharves. The Panuco abounds in 
this gamest of all fish, -nrhich here 
are so greedy for th« hook that they 
will take it practically anywhere and 
under all circumstances. Anyone who 
has seen the elaborate preparations 
which tarpon fishermen make along 
the south Florida coast — the reels. 
nets, gaffs, rods, lines, rubber boots. 
hired men, yawl and . I kno\r not 
what else beside — would hardly be- 
lieve it possible for anybody to so 
after this superb quarry in the sim-> 
pie way possible at Tampico. All 
you need is a stout line, a big hook, 
some bait and a place on the nrharf. 
In the bar attached to one of the 
hotels in Tampico there is a room 
decorated with the scales of tarpon 
caught in just such unpretentious 
ways, each scale adorned with the 
name of the fisherman, the weight of 
the fish and the date of the event. 
The collection is large and grrowing, 
for every year more and more people 
come to Tampico for the fishing, the 
fame of which is gradually being 
noised abroad. As yet, however, it 
is one of those places which the 
soul of Isaak Walton would have 
delighted in — where there is plenty 
of fish and not enough competitors 
to spoil sport. Tarpon as big as any 
ever caught are regularly taken in 
the Panuco in front of the city, and 
the supply seems absolutely inex- 
haustible. There is no doubt of it, 
Tampico is the fisherman's real par- 
adise. 



ohaf=>xe:r II 



The Gateway of Northeastern Mexico — Rapid Growth of the Honey 
Business — Hundreds of Barrels of Honey Exported Every 
Year — Experimenting- with Bananas— American Colonies in 
the Tampico District— Reasons Why Many of Them Fave 
Proven Unsuccessful — End of Hard Times in Tampico — 
Bright Future of the Little City — Municipal Sanitary Enter- 
prises — Notable Work of Dr. Matienza — ^Ridding Tampico 
of Mosquitoes — Sewerage and Drainage — Strict Quaran- 
tine Laws Rig-idly Enforced — Healthfulness of the Port 
Demonstrate^^— A Visit to the Hospital. 



VVVHE population of Tampico is 
\ 7 about 20,000. Tlie American 
\ / colony numbers about 250, 
& '2' but the members thereof are 
constantly changing. The 
business of the city is largely 
, JS) in the hands of brokers and 
commission merchants. The 
imports are valued at $49,000,000, and 
the exports at $14,000,000 per annum. 
The imports are principally lumber, 
coal and coke, machinery, rails and 
other manufactured articles of steel 
and iron, the former for the use of 
the railroad, and the latter partly 
for the railroad and partly for t?he 
use of the big smelters in the in- 
terior. Tlie exports are principally 
bullion, ixtle, hides and honey. The 
bullion comes to Tampico not only 
from the smelters -within a short 
radius of the port, but from as, far 
off as the vicinity of El Paso. The 
railroad makes a rate through Tam- 
pico to New York which is lower 
than the all-rail rate. This is prob- 
ably due to tfie fact that the road 
has to bring empty care to the sea, 
and can afford to reduce the freight 
charges on the ore in order to find 
something with which to fill these 
cars. Tlie bullion goes principally 
to Perth Amboy, -where it is refined. 
The second principal feature of the 
export trade, ixtle, is a kind of in- 
ferior grade of hennequin (sisal), 
and is valued for use in making 
ropes, etc. Something is also done 
with zapupe, a species of fiber w^hich 
grows luxuriantly in the vicinity of 
Tampico, but the commercial possi- 
bilities of which are just now being 
recognized. Zapupe can be sold at 
a somewhat higher price than sisal, 



and while it is not as valuable as 
the latter, the length of the fiber 
and the fact that the plant matures 
in about one-third of the time re- 
quired for sisal, indicates that it can 
be made profitable. 

The honey business is rapidly, 
growing. The Mexican-American 
Steamship Company brings down 
every month an immense number of 
whisky barrels, which are promptly 
returned filled with honey. The 
usual shipment is 75 or 100 barrels. 
So far no attempt has been made to 
cultivate the bee scientifically. The 
Indians in the interior, on whom the 
merchants now rely for the entire 
supply, construct their apiaries _ in 
the most primitive mannei:, utilizing 
hollow stumps of trees, caves, tin 
cans, etc. When the sewerage works 
were being inaugurated in Tampico 
recently much trouble was exper- 
ienced from thefts by the natives of 
sections of earthenware pipe. These 
were quickly turned into bee hives. 
Afterwards the Indians found that 
they could procure pieces of chipped 
pipe for the askiixg, and consequent- 
ly, while the thefts ceased, the num- 
ber of bee hives of this unique fa- 
shion has augmented steadily. The 
Indians collect the honey ii^ empty 
five-gallon oil cans, load them into 
their canoes and transport them 
down the Panuco and the Tamasi 
Rivers to market. They present a 
very picturesque sight. 

These are indications that the 
fruit business, once a prosperous 
feature of Tampico commerce, will 
be revived. Formerly, lightdraught 
schooners running into Tampico 
took back to the United States car- 



10 



Seven Mexican Cities. 



goes of luscious bananas, but the 
development of the Central American 
ports has destroyed the traffic. Re- 
cently, however, a California syndi- 
cate, headed by a man named Trigg, 
has acquired an extensive tract of 
land about sixty miles from Tampi- 
co. Communication is maintained 
from the plantation witli Tampico 
by tlie Panuco River. Here experi- 



Tampico can make a trip in tvsro and 
a half or three days. Obviously, a 
detention of three days longer, as 
required by .t,l\e existing quarantine 
laws, would make it unprofitable for 
the ships to go in the trade on a 
large scale. •;';:■' 

Though the American colony in 
Tampico is small, there are, per- 
haps, '/'.OOO ot our countrymen set- 







L.o:i<liu^ Canoes in the Tamesi River. 



ments are being made with the large 
banana grown in Central America, 
and now so popular in the United 
States. The native banana is of 
small size, though delicate in flavor. 
Its size militates against its popu- 
larity in the United States. Should 
the present experiment prove suc- 
• cessful, it is likely that a consider- 
able business will be built up, though 
its development will largely depend 
upon the possibility of modifying the 
quarantine la'ws so as to admit the 
fruit quickly to, market in the United 
States. As it stands now, tlie steam.- 
ers plying between New Orleans and 



tied in the vicinity of the port. Many 
of them have been induced to come 
to Mexico by the agents of various 
colonization enterprises. There are, 
no doubt, many perfectly legitimate 
schemes of this kind; the object of 
whicli is as much to promote tlie pros- 
perity of the immigrants as to earn 
dividends for the stockholders. 
Against these of course there is no 
ground for criticism. Unfortunately, 
not all of these enterprises are of this 
character, and many of the colonists 
who have settled near Tampico have 
been attracted thither by the prom- 
ises freely made by the promoters of 



Seven Mexican Cities. 



11 



reprehensible schemes. If thev have 
not been as successful in Mexico as 
they nad been made to hope, the fault 
lies not with them or with Mexico, 
but with the way in Which the colo- 
nies have been organized and estab- 
lished. The settlers themselves are as 
a rule very desirable citizens. They 
belong- to that hardy, adventurous 
race; the forefathers of whom settled 
Missouri, Nebraska and Texas. Prob- 
ably there is no class of citizens in 
whose veins flows a purer strain of 
American blood. The spirit of ad- 
veture which- drove their ancestors 
from England to the New World, 
and impelled successive generations 
to emigrate, first from Virginia to 
Kentucky and Mississippi, and thnce 
to the frontier, is still active in 
them. It is the craving for excite- 
ment and the desire of change w^hich 
has driven them to seek here in 
Mexico another frontier. A large 
number of such colonies have been 
established, several within the last 
year. Time enough has not yet 
elapsed to permit the fate of these 
newest experiments to be prophe- 
sied. But in the past nearly all such 
enterprises have resulted in disin- 
tegration and ultimate failure. The 
Chemal Colony is one exception that 
merely serves to prove the rule. The 
trouble seems to be that, coming to 
a .new country the colonists have 
had little imowledge of the local 
conditions. There were few or none 
to teach them how to cultivate their 
farms. They applied the methods 
with which they were familiar in 
Missouri and Nebraska, but the re- 
sult was generally unsatisfactory. 
The lure which has brought many 
of them to Mexico has been the 
chance of buying land cheap. They 
could sell their properties in the 
United States for $10 or $40 per acre 
and reinvest the money near Tam- 
pico at $3 to $5 per acre in land in- 
finitely more fertile than that with 
which they had parted. The one se- 
rious drawback, in addition to a lack 
of the proper knowledge, has been 
the uncertainty of the rainfall. The 
.rainfall av^erages fifty inches per 
annum, but there is no telling just 
when the bulk of the precipitation 
will occur. Sometime for months on 
no rain will fall. Then the vegeta- 
tion dries up and the crops of the 
colonists are failures. This has not 
happened now for two or three years. 
For that length of time the rainfall 
Ihas been fairly w^ell-distributed 
throughout the year. The result has 
been good crops and general con- 
tentment. Hence, many of the new- 
comers regard the risk of drought, 
as negligible. It should, however, 
figure in the calculations of every 



man who proposes to settle in the 
rural districts tributary to Tam- 
pico. 

Thte colonies, however, whether 
failures or successes, hg-ve been pru- 
ductiye of good to Mexico in cer- 
tain unexpected ways. As the bonds 
which held the colonists together 
have relaxed, and the members of 
the communities scattered, many of 
the mehnbers acquired little estates 
independent of the settlement of 
which they once formed a part. Some 
of them have devoted these little 
plantations to the cultivation of su- 
gar cane and corn, and have met 
with a measure of success, th\nks 
to the experience through which 
they had previously passed. Chemal 
the colony the success which was 
noted above as an exception to the 
rule of failure and discouragement, 
is said to contain about 800 souls. 
It is located in rather an inacces- 
sible region forty to fifty miles from 
Tampico and about thirty miles back 
from the railroad. The reports from 
the colony indicate that the farming 
enterprises have been along the lines 
with which the colonists are most 
familiar. Moreover, now that eight 
or ten years have elapsed since the 
first of these colonies was planted in 
Tamaulipas, nearly all the inevitable 
experiments have been tried, and the 
survivors have acquired at a bitter 
price a knowledge of the local con- 
ditions, which they are able to im- 
part to newcomers, and which en- 
ables them to begin a new life under 
fairly favorable conditions. 

Tampico has undergone a long pe- 
riod of commercial depression, from 
which it is now just beginning to 
emerge. This is true in spite of the 
fact that the statistics show a steady 
increase, year by year, in the quan- 
tity and value of the exports and 
imports. Nevertheless, for a consid- 
erable period the city lost popula- 
tion, the value of property declined, 
and there was considerable suffering 
among the poorer classes. These 
conditions have now happily disap- 
peared, and the city has regained 
the position and prosperity which it 
enjoyed fourteen years ago. The es- 
tablishment of the Mexican-Ameri- 
can Steamship Company promises to 
be a potent factor in the develop- 
ment of the commercial importance 
of the city. The future is extremely 
bright. The depression was the na- 
tural result of changing conditions, 
operating in a community of rooted 
conservatism. For many years the 
people had been content with the 
business amd manufacturing methods 
that had satisfied their forefathers. 
Suddenly, modern ideas were thrust 
upon them; machinery displaced hand 



12 



Seven Mexican Cities. 



labor; crafts which maintained hun- 
dreds of operatives in modest com- 
fort were destroyed. It was, on a 
small scale, somewhat the same con- 
dition which resulted in Lancaster- 
shire in the middle of the last cen- 
tury, when the invention of the pow- 
er loom destroyed the cottage in- 
dustries on which thousands of Brit- 
ish w^eavers were dependent for 
bread. The people of Tampico were 
not able all at once to abandon the 
routine which they had inlierited 
from their ancestors and which com- 
ported so well with their own dis- 
positions and habits. One case will 
serve to illustrate what happened: 
Before the present superb harbor 
w^orks were completed, the vessels 
trading at the port were compelled 
to lie at anchor some distance out 
in the roadstead. There was a pros- 
perous element in the population 
which made a: living - -lightering 
freight to and fro from the shore 
to the ships. Another set of labor- 
ers thrived upon the business of 
transferring freight from the light- 
ers to the patient mules whicii 
waited to convey it to the interior. 
The railroad, however, was eventu- 
ally constructed into the town; the 
docks allowed large' vessels to lie 
directly at the tracKS and discharge 
into the freight cars; and these two 
industrious classes found their occu- 
pation gone. They had to look else- 
where tor something to do, and in 
the process of changing their habits 
and customs of life a good deal of 
trouble was experienced. This, or 
very mucn the same thing, happened 
in scores of other cases, and much 
suffering ensued. All this, however, 
has happily heSa adjusted, and Tam- 
pico is now embarking upon a per- 
iod of prosperity easily worth all 
that it has cost. 

The activity - and intelligence of 
the municipal authorities of Tampi- 
co in sanitary matters might well 
be imitated in our own country. They 
are aware tliat tlie disease from 
which they liave most to apprehend 
is yellow fever, and the steps whicii 
tliey are taking to rid tliemselves 
of danger, from this scourge are 
modern, scientific and, so far as can 
be judged at present, effective. The 
mosquito theory of tlie origin of the 
disease, is accepted as proven, and 
the campaign is being conducted 
along tne IJnes laid down by the 
ablest modern investigators. The 

problem which Tampico has had to 
solve was exceedingly difficult. For- 
tunately, in Dr. Matienza, the head 
of the loca Public Health Depa.rt- 
Tnent, the city commands the serv- 
ices of a scientist trained in the 
best European scliools. Dr. Mati- 



enza is a disciplinarian and organ- 
izer. One of his most efflcient meas- 
ures was the establishment of a corps 
of sanitary inspectors, who are con- 
stantly on duty. They visit every 
building in the city at frequent in- 
tervals and ascertain whether cis- 
terns, tanks and other receptacles of 
water are screened or covered, as re- 
quired by law. It is no easier in 
Tampico than in New Orleans to 
induce the people to obey the law, 
but there is hope that they will soon 
be brought to co-operate unanimous- 
ly with the health authorities in the 
observance of the statute. 

Tampico does not regard itself as 
a natural focus of yellow fever. Th© 
experience of past epidemics goes to 
support that belief. In each of the 
recent outbreaks the infection has 
been clearly traced to other ports 
wher'e the disease is believed to be 
endemic. Moreover, ah interval of 
years, during which yellow fever was 
unknown in Tampico, preceded the 
epidemic of 1898. It is plausibly ar- 
gued that, if the city were a breed- 
ing place of the germ, it would not 
have been free from the pest for any 
such protracted period. It is nat- 
ural, tlierefore, that to-day Tampico 
sliould maintain a strict quarantine 
against the three or four points 
which experience has proven to be 
centers of infection. Ships from 
these places are compelled to under- 
go four liours' fumigation from sul- 
phur. This is deemed sufflcient. Pas- 
sengers are not subject to detention, 
but their names and estinations are 
noted, and if they propose to remain 
in tlie city for more than an hour or 
two, tliey are kept under observa- 
tion. Sliould, however, there be any 
suspicious circumstance sufflcient to 
justify special strictness, . they are 
required to remain in their apart- 
ments until the hour of departure, 
and are visited at frequent intervals 
by representatives of the Board of 
Healtli, their temperature taken, and 
other data collected. This routine 
has been enforced in quite a number 
of cases, and the fact that the port 
has been free from fever for three 
years would seem to demonstrate its 
efficiency. In addition, an" excellent 
quarantine station is maintained at 
a point on the Panuco River, belOAy 
the city. 

The most important step, how- 
ever, that lias been taken in the cam- 
paign against the fever is the con- 
struction of a sewerage and drain- 
age system. The necessity tlierefor 
has long been recognized in Tampico. 
When the project was first bruited, 
some ten or eleven years ago, tlie 
terms on whicii the municipality 
called for bids were such tliat con- 



Seven Mexican Cities. 



13 



tractors declined to compete for the 
work. The right was reserved to 
reject all bids, and this sufficed to 
discourage the responsible firms who 
might otlierwise have been willing 
even at that time to enter into the 
contract. Subsequently, the Federal 
Government, acting with the liberal- 
ity that has always distinguished the 
administration of President Diaz, 
came to the rescue, and by guaran- 
teeing an issue of bonds, opened the 
^way for the successful inauguration 
'of the work. The city was divided 
into four zones, the first of which in- 
cluded the thickly-settled business 
section of the city. A contract for 
the sewerage and waiter system in 
this zone was let about a year ago -to 
"William Astor Chandler, of New 
York, who is represented in Tampico 
by D. H. Campbell, an engineer of 
great ability and experience. In ad- 
dition to the construction of the 
mains, Mr. Campbell was required to 
fill in the low places within the lim- 
its covered by his contract, with a 
view to prevent the formation of 
pools, etc., such as encourage the 
breeding of mosquitoes. Tne work 
in the first zone is done, and has al- 
ready given so much satisfaction 
that the contract has been signed 
with Mr. Campbell for tne extension 
of the system to all the remaining 
portions of the city. These regions 
embrace a considerable area of sub- 
urban and unimproved property, 
where most of the work will be in 
raising the level of the ground. 

The principal artery of tne sewer- 
age systeni is a 12-ineh main, dis- 
cnargmg into the Panuco River, 
about three-quarters of a mile be- 
low the city, where the current is 
ample to carry the sewage away. 
The flushing facilities are said to 
be excellent. The water supply is 
drawn from the Panuco, at a point 
about twenty - eight kilometers 
ab'ove the city, where a large intake 
and settling basin have been con- 
structed. The water is pumped to a 
hill about a mile from Tampico, the 
highest point convenient to the city, 
and is dispensed tiience by gravity. 
Throughout Tampico plugs have 
been set up for the benefit of the 
poor; they are also adapted for use 
in case of fire. The total cost of in- 
stalling the system is estimated at 
$1,250,U00. It is expected that the 
final contract will be completed 
within two years. As in the case of 
New Orleans the great object which 
the entire enterprise is desired to 
promote is to rid the city perma- 
nently of cisterns and tanks and thus 
to eliminate the mosquitoes. To com- 
plete this work, it will eventually be 
necessary to fill in the Carpintero 
T^agoon, a shallow body of water to 



the west of the city with a super- 
ficial area of about a hundred acres. 
It is said that this task is now be- 
ing considered. Aside from its value 
as a factor in the sanitating of the 
city, the filling in of this lagoon 
would give Tampico space in which 
to expand and of which it will pres- 
ently stand in urgent need. 

Under the supervision of Dr. Ma- 
tienza a large and well-equipped 
hospital has been established on the 
highest point of land within the city 
limits. The building covers an en- 
tire square, and is arranged attract- 
ively around three sides of a flower- 
brightened courtyard. The remain- 
ing side is shortly to be occupied by 
a maternity ward, preparations for 
the construction of which are now 
under way. In point of cleanliness 
and order this institution will com- 
pare advantageously with anything 
in the United States. The wards are 
large, well-ventilated and contain 123 
beds, ninety-seven of which were oc- 
cupied at the time of our visit. So 
strict is the management that vis- 
itors are only admitted in rare cases 
and then the utmost care is taken 
to provide against the spread of any 
kind of infection. The doorways of 
the wards are supplied with double 
screens, forming a species of ante- 
chamber, through which one must 
pass in entering or leaving the 
rooms, and by means of which the 
risk of insects obtaining access to 
the patients is reduced to a mini- 
mum. 

The records, carefully preserved at 
the hospital, verified by those at the 
City Hall, show that Tampico is a 
healthy city. Diphtheria and scarlet 
fevr are unknown. Typhoid fever is 
rare. Measles and wliooping cougli 
exist only in mild forms. Tlie dis- 
ease which claims the largest quota 
of victims actually is pneumonia. 
This is the result of the habits of 
the people, the bulk of whom are 
uneducated, and not more than or- 
dinarily intelligent. They betray a 
fatal indifference to tlie w^eather, 
and wear the same flimsy garments 
in winter time as they do in the 
heats of summer. Frost is not un- 
known in Tampico, and the sudden 
changes of temperature which ocur 
once or twice every winter vi'ork 
havoc among the lightly-clad popu- 
lation. The lower classe do not 
possess the phvsical stamina to re- 
sist colds, which soon develop into 
tubercular trouble. They hive the 
indifference to medical treatment 
which is characteristic of all ig- 
norant people. The mortality, there- 
fore, is heavy, especially among 
children. The figures, however, are 
deceptive. The sick from scores of 



14 



Seven Mexican Cities. 



villages in the country surrounding 
Tampico throng- in to the city for 
medical attention. They come only 
when every domestic remedy has 
been applied in vain and hope is al- 
most gone. Consequently the death 
rate is swelled disproportionately 
from this source. In bad years the 
mortality has gone as high as 1,600; 
in good years the annual number of 
deaths has fallen as low as 800. 
The distinction between favorable 
and unfavorable years is largely a 
matter of the rains. If the rainy 
season is prolonged, much sickness 
m.ay be expected. If, on the other 
hand, the season is comparatively 
late, and the rainfall small, the 
health of the community continues 
excellent. That Tampico is by no 
means a plague spot is proven by 



the fact that the United States Ma- 
rine Hospital surgeon long stationed 
here was recently transferred to 
Vera Cruz, and his place has not 
been filled, the Government appar- 
ently being satisfied that there is no 
reason why any apprehension should 
be felt regarding the health of this 
port. This fact, coupled with the 
consciousness of having performed 
with unusual strictness every duty 
required by modern hygienic science 
disposes the people of Tampico to 
resent the attitude of suspicion 
whicli New Orelans still assuines 
with reference to them, and it is im- 
possible for a candid observer, alive 
to all the factors in the case^ both 
in Tampico • and in New Orleans, not 
to feel tliat there is some justice in 
their criticism. 



CDHAF=>-rE:F=R 



Mountain Scenery Bel\yeen Tampico and San Luis Potosi — Won- 
derful JEngineeririg Work in the Tamosopo Valley — Pit-Like 
Ravines a Thousand Feet Beep— Ascent of Fifteen Hundred 
Feet in Less Than Thirty Miles— Through the Desert— The 
Charm of Guanajuato — Old^Fashioned Mexican Mining Town 
High Up in the Hills,' Which Remains To-Day Exactly as It 
Was a Century Agor— A Costly Theatre — The Campo Santo 
and Its MummieSi 



ROM Tampico to San Luis. Po- 
tosi, a distance of about 300 
miles, the Si;0kican Central 
.Railroad runs, throUgfii coun- 
try every foot of" which ,is- 
interesting. The train leaves 
Tampico at, 6 o'clock, and 
plung-es alnj^bgt at-;-p,nce 'into 
a tropical jungle of ■.•mesquite, in the 
g-narled branches of which grow niil- 
lions of orchids. Here and there a. 
sugar plantatiort reliev.es;:,the green 
•monotony of the , walderness. At 
Ebano, a typical little' Station, al- 
reaay hot and dusty though , the' 
morning has but begun,; one sees 
huge tanks and talF'derricks erected 
by the railroad company. /Ebanos; is 
the center of what prorhis^^* to be ^h 
important oil field. Many.5of the io- 
comotives operated on... this section of 
the Mexican Central have already 
been equipped to.; use oil in' lieu of 
coal. If the Ebano wells prove as 
productive as now seems proba;ble, 
one of the pressing industrial prob- 
lems of northeastern Mexico will be 
solved. Nothing has handicapped the 
development of this rich and fertile 
section of the republic more than, the- 
lack of fuel. Coal is imported from 
the United States and England; wood 
is costly and not always easy to pro- 
cure, and it is in petroleum that the 
hope of the land obviously lies. The 
exploitation of the field has, how- 
ever, not been made on a very ex- 
tensive scale, nor at any other poiiit 
than Ebano. Beyond that stopping 
place the simple, pastoral character 
of the landscape reasserts itself. 

Nothing is more interesting than 
the silent, impassive crowd which ■ 
g'athers at the average Mexican rail*- 
road station to watch i^ie ^rain' go> 
ty. -.imost invariably a well- 
mounted l-anchero reins in hiS' horse 



to enjoy the spectacle. The costumes 
of those we saw between Ebano and 
Tamasopo were not especially pic- 
turesque, except in respect to hats. 

'a loose, shapeless garment envel- 
oped the body and joined the coarse 
cotton' trousers under the crimson 

:.-f,olds of a wide sash tightly lashed 

,jiround the waist. The hat, however, 
was of nlonutnental proportions, two; 
•;"and even three., feet in diameter 
aci-OBs tne brim and fully half as 
high, rising into a tall cone of felt 
or straw, as the owner's taste dic- 
ts»ted.-V Often leather ornaments, 

.gaily worked with colored braids, and 
a "massive woolen cord added to its 
weight. Which - in the hot sunshine 

-must have been almost unendurable. 
Rich- and poor alike . affected these 
huge hats. We even found one old 
fellow who wore two, one spiked 
upon the other, like some new kind 
of portable pagoda. The dress of the 
women was rudimentary in its sim- 
plicity. So far as the casual glance 
revealed, it consisted of a single long 
white garment, girded at tne waist, 
and a blue shawl, or reboso, draped 
over the head and shoulders. All, 
without distinction of sex, gazed at 
the train with dull faces, without so 
much as a passing expression of in- 
terest, as though they had forgotten 
the purpose for which they had as- 
sembled, or found the spectacle much 
less interesting than they had hoped. 

In the vicinity of the little station 
of Coco the road leaves the plains 
and enters the foothills, which, grad- 
ually rising from that point, attain 
a height of 6,000 feet before the day 
is over. From this point, onward 
the lover of beautiful scenery finds 
much to delight him. There is one 
section, of the trip from Tamasopo 



16 



Seven Mexican Cities. 




At thv F«»utttain Bi'fore the Pari:sli Church, Giianajnnto. 



to Las Canoas, which in_ ruggea 
grandeur rivals anything- of the kind 
in Switzerl-and. Before arriving at 
Tamasopo the route lies for a con- 
siderable distance among the lower 
spurs of the Sierra, but there is 
nothing to prepare the mind for the 
sudden transition frora the compara- 



tive commonplace of tropical land- 
scape to the verdant wonder of the 
hills beyond that :station. It is about 
1± o'clock when the train stops at 
Tamasopo for breakfast. Prom the 
platform of the little station one may 
look up and up and up the appar- 
ently unscalable heights, all bosked 



Seven Mexican Cities. 



17 



with woods. But there is absolutely 
no hint of the tremendous dramg. 
that is about to open. 

For a few miles the train runs un- 
concernedly along- through little 
patches of willow and mesquite, al- 
ternating with tiny plowed fields as 
yet bare in the brig-ht sunshine, but 
soon to become green with harvest. 
Suddenly a huge hill seems to bar 
the way; the tracks curve sharply 
around its base, and for many min- 
utes the traveler finds himself riding 
along a slielf in the rock, mounting 
little by little, but all the time look- 
ing back over the valley and the lit- 
tle station he has just left. Then, 
suddenly, as though one had just 
turned the leaf of a great story- 
book and come unexpectedly upon a 
Strange and spirit-stirring drama, 
the matchless conception of the en- 
gineer who constructed the road be- 
comes clear. His task -was to scale 
these mountains, and he has executed 
it in the boldest manner, run- 
ning his levels back and forth across 
the almost precipitous slopes, carry- 
ing the track up and on to the very 
summit, often requiring the whole 
circuit of the valley to gain a few 
feet of elevation. There are points 
■u-here one can count three distinct 
lines of track on the same hillside. 

ihe grandeur and magnitude of 
the work can be appreciated from 
the fact that for nearly two hours 
the train continues in sight of the 
hamlet of Tamasopo. Tunnels may 
hide it from sight for a few mo- 
ments; a gigantic hill may snatch it 
from view; but ultimately it reap- 
pears in the landscape, growing con- 
stantly smaller as the perpendicular 
distance increases. Obviously, vol- 
canic forces of the most gigantic 
character have been at work here in 
times past, carving the hills into 
strange shapes. Then the torrential 
tropical rains have gashed the slopes 
and precipitated avalanches of rock 
into the ravines, leaving the very 
bones of the mountains bare and glis- 
tening. Sometimes these wall-like 
formations thrust themselves out 
from the ground directly in the way 
of the train. Many tunnels such as 
the three at Espinaza have been cut 
through just such barriers. For one 
bewildering moment they snatch you 
away from sunshine and the hills — ■ 
for they are seldom more than a few 
score feet in length — and then, with 
a rush and roar, the train leaps back 
into the clear day, leaving you 
breathless with surprise as some gi- 
gantic valley opens out beneath you, 
perhaps a thousand feet deep. There 
are places where, after leaving the 
wide grandeur of the Tamasopo 



Canon, the eye plunges directly down 
into pitlike ravines, five or six hun- 
dred feet deep, into which a plummit 
might be easily dropped from tlie 
car window without encountering in- 
terruption till at the bottom it would 
be received in the rocky bed of some 
now dry rivulet. 

In spite of the amazing complexity 
of the hill-forms in all this region, 
the lush vegetation of the tropics 
never loses its grip on the rocks for 
more tnan a few feet at a time. Here 
and there, on the shoulder of a 
iiul, where it hardly seems possible 
for a human being to keep his feet 
for a single staggering instant, a 
hardy mountaineer has planted a tiny 
field. Once we saw, stuck like a 
postage stamp upon the perpendicu- 
lar face of a verdant cliff a thousand 
feet high, a tiny thatched cottage, a 
mere eyrie, such as an eagle might 
inhabit; yet there were women and 
children dwelling in that apparently 
inaccessible home, for they thronged 
to the lip of the tremendous descent 
and watched our train rushing by on 
the opposite hillside. 

This ride is one of the most re- 
markable experiences that can come 
into a man's life. The distance from 
tamasopo to Las Canoas, where the 
grandest part of the scenery comes 
to an end, is less than thirty miles, 
but the ascent is 1,500 feet. Carde- 
nas, which is a few kilometers be- 
yond Las Canoas, is situated nearly 
4,000 feet above the sea. It is easy 
to understand, then, that for most of 
the distance between these towns the 
grades are of from 3 to 3 1-2 per cent. 
At the season of the year in which 
we saw it the country was suffering 
from a lack of rain, and the hun- 
dreds of little water courses that 
would otherwise have lent life to the 
landscape were lacking. Only the 
ury, rock-strewn channels through 
which they flow at other times, 
seamed the ravines. There was, how- 
ever, one bold little river which de- 
fied the heat and the drought and 
went thundering over the cliffs near 
the statioji of Abra, in a cascade 300 
feet high. "El Salto del Abra," it is 
called. The unexpected sight of its 
green current, dashing out, as it were 
from a deep cave of trees, itself the 
color of emerald, and then beaten to 
snowy foam as it plunged into va- 
cancy, was one of the most delight- 
ful sensations of the trip. 

But, beautiful as these streamlets 
must be in the rainy seasons, when 
the now dry canyons each receive 
its headstrong little torrent, they are 
a scource of unquestionable danger 
to the railroad. Between Las Canoas 
and Tamasopo the number of track 



18 



Seven Mexican Cities. 



walkers is increased to two or three 
per mile during that part of the 
year. They go armed with dyna- 
mite, searching for rocks dislodged 
by water and precipitated upon the 
track. It is said that hardly a day 
passes witliout tlie discovery and re- 
moval of enormous fragments of 
sandstone that would otherwise cause 
the wreck of trains and serious loss 
of life. The system is so perfect, 
however, that no accident has ever 



it a matter of superfluous effort to 
seek as yet to' reclaim the desert. 
There is, however, something in the 
very Immensity of the barren pros- 
pect terminating many miles away in 
a line of blue hills, that impresses, 
the imagination. Nor is the long- 
perspective devoid of life. Here and 
there a,t comparatively frequent irl-^ 
tervals the wails of a "hacienda" lift 
themselves white above tlie gnarled 
mesquite, inclosing within its ample 




*'I^a Presa,*' Guanajuato's Famous Park. 



occurred, nor is likely to, so long 
as this sleepless vigilance is main- 
tained. 

After leaving Cardenas, a thriving 
town of some size, the landscape 
loses most of its charm. Fortlinately, 
then, evening comes on, and the few 
remaining hours of daylight serve to 
giye the traveler a glimpse of the 
desert. For it is a desert, sparsely 
grown with cactus and mesquite. 
Doubtless this arid region could be 
made to blossom as bravely as any, if 
irrigated, but the abundance of de- 
sirable farming land in Mexico renders 



protection all the appurtenances of 
the ranch. It is astonishing with 
what persistence the khan type of 
dwelling holds its own in this land, 
now happily rid of the lawless ele- 
ment that originally justified the 
construction of these fortress-like 
liomes. For the "hacienda" of a by- 
gone generation was ^practically a 
citadel, and sheltered herds and re- 
tainers at night against the attack 
of marauders. This type of dwell- 
ing, however, is in entire harmony 
with the oriental character of the 
landscape, and adHs a touch of won- 



Seven Mexican Cities. 



19 



der to the scene fast losing- distinct- 
ness in the haze of twilight. Soon 
darkness shuts in; the big-, lustrous 
Mexican stars begin to appear, one 
by one, -with startling suddenness 
and individuality, as tliough each tiny 
point of flame determines independ- 
ently the moment to illumine itself, 
careless of its fellows. Our train, 
rushing- on to its destination, and 
soon to halt in the spacious station 
at San Luis Potosi, hardly seems a 
part of the peaceful night without. 



has resulted a system of parks and 
streets the like of which probably 
exists nowhere else in the world — 
ten-aces, stairs, inclined planes lead- 
ing up to houses higli on the hillsides 
like swallows' nests; plazas ant* 
parks half in the air, half-sunken be- 
low the level of the adjacent prop- 
perty, and everywhere brilliant color 
and quantities of flowers, making- up 
a scene as unusual and it is beauti- 
ful. 

Guanajuato dates back to 15.54, but 




Saddling Donkeys for the Ride to the Canipo Santo, Guanajuato, 



Few of the hundreds of tourists 
whom the Mexican Central annually 
brings from the United States to the 
City of Mexico think it worth "while 
to interrupt their journey at Silao, 
and make the side trip to Guaina- 
juato. This is strange, becaute 
Guanajuato is one of the most pic- 
turesque and interesting places in 
Mexico. It is located at the intersec- 
tion of three ravines, and from this 
unusual g-eological formation there 



its prosperity began in 17j60, when a 
poor Spaniard, tlien called Obregon, 
but subsequently invested with the 
title of Count of Valenciana, discov- 
ered a mine there of surpassing rich- 
ness. The town has always been fa- 
inous for its mines. It is even now 
liiLiC more tlian a mining ca-mp. Its 
main industry is the handling of 
ores: its chief source of wealth the 
traffic in supplies for the miners at 
work hi.o-li up in the hills. Of late 
the control of some of the ricnest of 



20 



Seven Mi-xican Cities. 



these properties has passed into the 
Jiands of Americans, and it is to be 
feared that tlie city, which has till 
:now resisted the modernizing- influ- 
ences at work elsewhere taroug-hout 
tlie republic, will lose much of its 
Old World charm in the course of the 
next few years. ^ Life, no doubt, will 
be made much more comfortable, taut 
it is a question whether the gain in 
•convenience \vill offset the loss of 
■qualities w^hich now make Guanaju- 
ato a delight to the jaded sightseer. 



tie river, crossed by stone bridges 
mossy with years. On the other are 
ruins of scores of ore-rendering es- 
tablishments partially or wholly de- 
stroyed in the inundation of July, 
1905. It is impossible to give any 
idea of tlie amazing picturesqueness 
of these moldering structures, so vast 
in extent, so romantic In their forti- 
fied strength. Some of them are cen- 
turies old, and have had occasion to 
test the value of their loopholed 
w^alls and turrets against bandits 




Facade of the Juarea Theatre, Guauu.iuato. 



The scenic charm of the place, how- 
ever, can never be destroyed. 

Leaving Silao by train, a short 
half-hour brings one to tne town of 
Marfil, in itself only less picturesque 
than Guanajiia'-o Fro— > Marfl' i' 's 
necessary to take a street car drawn 
by four rambunctious mules. For 
three miles the tracks follow the 
great road constructed by the Span- 
ish at a cost of millions in money 
-and nearly eighty-three years of la- 
bor. It is a marvel of engineering 
in its way. At one side brawls a lit- 



who have been tempted to attack 
tliem in hopes of securing the treas- 
ures garnered within. 

Guanajuato, being situated in the 
hills, there has always been danger 
to apprehend from cloudbursts, and 
on more than one occasion serious 
damage has been inflicted upon the 
adjacent country by sudden floods. 
That which occurred last year was, 
however, the greatest and most de- 
structive of which there is any rec- 
ord. The water topped the dam of 
the water works reservoir two or 



Seven Mexican Cities. 



21 



three miles from the city, and when 
this vast mass of masonry finally col- 
lapsed a solid wall of water rushed 
roaring down upon Guanajuato 
and Marfil. In the former city the 
flood stood sixteen feet deep in many 
places. All over the town may be 
seen little blue, g-lazed tablets set in 
the walls of the houses, recording- 
the height to which the water rose. 
In the lovely little parish church the 
floor was six or eight feet below the 
flood level. Singualrly little harm 
was done to the city by the inunda- 
tion, or, if not so, the evidences of 
damage have been repaired. But in 
the outskirts of Marfil and all along 
the marvelously picturesque journey 
thence to Guanajuato we saw on 
every hand the ruins of great build- 
ings which were the prey of the 
storm. So great was the destruction 
here that it seemed as though we 
were passing through Pompeii or St. 
Pierre. In the midst of the ruTns, 
however, the vivid life of Mexico 
•went on much as usual. Strings of 
mules loaded with ore passed us, 
coming and going along the old 
Spanish road. Here and there a 
group of idlers sat on the piers of a 
shattered drawbridge or merry chil- 
dren romped along the battlements 
of some old "hacienda" a thousand 
feet long, where a huge water wheel, 
once so busy, was now motionless 
and silent. 

Our crowded little car deposited us 
with dramatic abruptness in the tiny 
triangular plaza in the very heart of 
Guanajuato. This is probably the 
largest piece of level ground in the 
city limits. It measures hardly a 
hundred feet along its greatest side, 
but, ah, how full it is of bloom and 
blossom, tree and shrub! The su- 
perbly-carved facade of the parisli 
church tempted us to go within. The 
interior was cool and sweet; the 
altars glittered with lights, and there 
were pictures and frescoes on the 
walls to make the place beautiful. 
In a little chapel at the right of the 
altar we found hundreds of votive 
offerings nailed to the wall — pictures 
painted on tin in the crudest fashion, 
representing the intervention of 
heavenly powers, when prayer had 
been answered by the preservation of 
life or some unexpected stj-oke of 
good fortune. The very absence of 
all artistic merit made these quaint 
little pictures all the more interest- 
ing, mute testimonials as they were 
to the sincerity of the faith which 
placed them in their present posi- 
tion. 

Adjoining this charming little 
church stands the most splendid 
theatre in the Western World. The 



Teatro Juarez is truly one of the- 
wonders of Mexico. The exterior, 
constructed of some fine gray stone, 
is more or less Grecian in design, 
with a magnificent portico fully fifty 
feet in height, tlie cornice decorated 
with bronze statues of the muses. 
Bronze replicas of Thorwaldsen's 
lions flank the noble steps that lead' 
up to the entrance. The foyer is in 
the Pompeiian style, exquisitely fres- 
coed, and rich with bronze, marble, 
gold and carved wood. The audito- 
rium is not large, but its fittings are- 
perfect, and the Persian decorations 
are carried out with a lavishness 
hardly to be appreciated until seen. 
The impression of accumulated 
richness is almost overpo\yering. I 
believe the structure cost the Mexi- 
can Government a million dollars. 
Why so expensive a building was 
erected in this out-of-the-way moun- 
tain town is one of the problems 
which the leisurely tourist may solve 
for himself. There it is, finished ful- 
ly ten years ago, and only used two- 
or three times since it was dedi- 
cated, in 1903, by President Diaz In 
person. The custodian, who showed 
us over the place, told us tiiat from 
the day it was pronounced finished 
till the time when the President ar- 
rived to dedicate it, the building re- 
mained closed. "And since tlien," he 
added, a bit wistfully, as it seemed 
to us, "we lend it only to high-class- 
companies — none other are worthy of 
this place, veritable temple of art as 
it is. And they are not many, senor!" 
Probably not, we reflected, as we 
followed him from saloon to saloon, 
admiring the sumptuous gilded furni- 
ture, upholstered in crimson velvet 
and bullion fringe, the busts and 
vases specially designed for their 
places, the statues and the costly in- 
laid floors. 

One of the historic places in Guan- 
ajuato, the Alhondi^a de Grenaditas, 
is worth visiting if only to look at 
the spike on which the liead of Hidal- 
go was thrust after the execution of" 
that patriot leader in Chihuahua. 
The head remained there, moldering 
in the sunshine, for ten years, and 
then, Mexico having flung off the 
yoke of its Spanish masters, was 
transported to the City of Mexico and 
interred in the Chapel of the Kings, 
in the Cathedral. The Alhondiga was 
erected in 1785 as a commercial ex- 
change, and long served that purpose. 
But now it has fallen from its higli 
estate, and is utiliped as a prison 
where convicts are tauglit trades, in 
the hope — alas, how often vain! — of 
rendering them on their release use- 
ful members of the community. Hi- 
dalgo's story is closely connected 



22 



Sevkn Mexican Cities. 



-with Guanajuato, for it was here that 
he gained his first important victory 
over the Spanish in 1810, and it was 
here, too, tliat Calleja defeated Al- 
lende, Hidalg-o's friend and lieuten- 
ant, and cruelly punished the loyalty 
of the populace lo the cause of lib- 
erty by shooting- many of the promi- 
nent citizens, imprisoning others, and 
levying heavy fines upon hundreds 
more. 

But the artistic soul will not ask 
for historic associations in Guana- 



flowers, flowers! It is through scenes 
like these that one rambles on to the 
upper end of the town, to La Presa, 
one of the reservoirs connected with 
the water works, which Mexican 
ingenuity and love of the beautiful 
have converted into a park and pleas- 
ure resort. Nothing can be more fas- 
cinatingly lovely than the slender 
tower which overlooks the broad 
pool of -water dreaming in the sun- 
shine, willow trees glassing them- 
selves in its smooth surface. The 




The Plaza at Guanajuato. 



juato. The place is its own excuse 
for being. Every street corner is a 
picture. Here a sudden turn of the 
hillside reveals a stone fountain, the 
toright water plashing into a mossy 
basin and an Indian girl, wrapped in 
her reboso, standing beside it with 
.a huge earthenware jar on her shoul- 
der. Another vista will disclose on 
the hillside a little home such as 
Seneca or Cicero might have fre-- 
ciuented on the Appian Way, so truly 
does it reproduce in plan and color- 
ing the type of Roman dwelling of 
2,000 years ago. And everywhere are , 



dam is high and coped with stone so 
as to- form a noble esplanade looking 
down on a little park below, where 
at times tlie band, plays and where 
there is at all other hours a cease- 
less choiring of birds. It is probably 
one of the most beautiful spots in 
Mexico. 

The most interesting place in 
Guanajuato to-day is the Gampo 
santo. It stands on a hill to the 
north cif the city, is inclosed in high 
walls and looks like a fortress rather 
than a cemetery. The approach is 
along a street which runs steeply up 



Seven Mexican Cities. 



23 



the hillside between rows of box 
trees, each primly set by itself in a 
little circular wall of rough stone. 
The houses continue almost to the 
very gate of the cemetery, then cease 
abruptly, as thoug-h awed by the 
proximity of sacred soil, leaving the 
tourist face to face with a superb 
view over the thronging "casas" of 
the city and the multitudinous blue 
hills beyond. Usually, the arduous 
ascent is made on donkeys, numbers 



clamorous children, all eager for the 
honor and emoluments which go witli 
tlie task of holding a donkey's head 
during the absence of its rider. 

The cemetery is open to all, but 
there is some formality connected 
with the admission to the crypts, 
where the great curiosity of the place 
is seen, and it is well to go armed 
with a card from the proper autliori- 
ties. We omitted this important per- 
formance, and consequently had a 




A Youthful Adjunct to the AVater AVorks, Gusiuajuato. 



of v/hicli can be hired at the base of 
the liill. Tlie advent of foreigners 
suffices to set tlie entire neighbor- 
hood in commotion. The proprietor 
of the donkeys promptly hurries for- 
ward; scores of bright-eyed urchins 
crowd around, .soliciting the gift of a 
cent or two: women and girls draped 
in blue rebosos appear before the 
houses to gaze amusedly at the ani- 
mated scene, and finally, when the 
party, mounted and ready for adven- 
ture, sets forth, it is usually accom- 
panied at least as far as the gateway 
■of the cemetery by a battalion of 



long \vait in the laot S'lnsliine while 
the affable sexton liurried off as fast 
as his fat little legs would permit 
in searcn of our credentials. While 
we waited we liad ample time to ex- 
plore the cemetery, whicli, as a mat- 
ter of fact, is rather a bare and 
gloomy place, in spite of the glorious 
sunsliine and tlie pungent mountain 
air. Tlie high walls are lined with 
tiers of "ovens." those curious colum- 
baria wliic-- all Latin races have in- 
herited from Roman ancestors, and 
which have been adapted to new 
uses now that the unpopularity of 



24 



Seven Mexican Cities. 



cremation has robbed them of their 
only reason for existing-. Five and 
even six tiers of tombs arise to the 
very lip of the wall, the top of which, 
thus made astonishingly wide, can be 
gained by ladder, and thence another 
magnificent view of the city may be 
obtained. Long ambulatories, shield- 
ed from the sun by rows of arches, 
afford a grateful shade for such as 
have occasion to walk there, scan- 
ning the inscriptions upon the tombs. 
The vast area thus inclosed has un- 
fortunately been left uare of floral 
adornment, though here and there 
scattered over its parched surface 
are- many marble monuments, some 
of them of great artistic merit. 

Our amiable friend, the sexton, re- 
turning- with a bit of pasteboard be- 
tween his perspiring fingers, led us 
to the farthest arcade and pointed to 
an iron ring set in one of the huge 
flags that form the pavement. "It 
Is down there," he whispered, in a 
voice which familiarity with the se- 
crets of the place could not rob of a 
certain awe. He seized. the ring, and 
with many a tug, raised the stone 
from its resting place, revealing .1 
circular opening running far do^vn 
into the darkness and silence below. 
It was a -winding stair cut in the 
living rock. Had the little sexton 
not promptly led the way, I doubt if 
any in our party -would have felt 
equal to the descent into so unprom- 
ising a place. But, -with a final glance 
at the sunlit tombs around us, we 
followed our guide into obscurity. 

As a matter of fact, the winding 
stair was shorter than it seemed and 
ended fifteen or twenty feet below 
the surface of tlie earth in an arched 
entrance giving access to a long, 
dimly-illuminated tunnel. It is said 
that this grim vault, excavated deep 
an the hillside, is 900 feet in length 
and has a width of twenty feet. The 
light which finds its way into the 
depths enters from circular openings 
high up on the side wall, and is so 
thin and ghostly that at first, before 
the eye becomes accustomed to the 
semidarkness, tlie tunnel seems in ■ 
terminable, high and long and nar- 
row out of all proportions, a place 
■""or ghouls and bandits, and yet so 
still that we could hear one another 
breathing- in the silence. The strang- 
est impression, however, results from 
beholding high glass doors, now se- 
curely locked, which shut off the up- 
per extremity of the vault, and be- 
hind which, clad in dusty wliite, a 
row on eitlier side, are some scores 
of human forms. These motionless 
figures are the famous mummies of 
Guanajuato, the ghastly, scarce hu- 
man remains of persons who have 



escaped the common doom of man- 
kind and have secured an uninten- 
tional and perhaps undesired immor- 
tality through the action of the' air 
and sun in the wall tombs of the 
cemetery. 

It appears that in this Campo 
Santo, as in practically all Mexican 
cemeteries, space is rented, but not 
sold for burial purposes, and at the 
end of five years the occupant of the 
g-rave must make way for another 
tenant. If friends are at hand to 
care for the bones of the late la- 
rnented, well; if not, they are con* 
signed to the vault below, wher« 
now. as our friendly sexton informed 
us, over 100,000 skeletons have been 
stored. We saw the bones, neatly- 
stacked from side to side and fr'-jm 
floor to roof, most of them brown 
from the earth in which they have 
so long reposed, but here and there 
a skull or thigh bone, bleached in 
the wall tombs, showed ghastly 
white against the darker mass. In 
the process of extracting the dead 
from the tombs at the end of each 
lustrum occasionally a body is found 
which has resisted the natural forces 
of decay. Most of these mummies 
are discovered in the uppermost tier 
of tGm.bs, wliere the heat is greatest, 
and doubtless a gradual drying out of 
the moisture of the body prepares it 
to become a member of the grim 
below behind the rocked and barred 
glass doors. For many years the 
mummies were disposed at intervals 
along the entire lengtli of the cor- 
ridor. In those days they were left 
in their unadorned hideousness, but 
the vandalism of visitors, some of 
w^hom, as the sexton hastened to in- 
form us, went so far as to dance here 
in the cat icomb -with these weazened 
corpses for partners, eventually com- 
pelled the authorities to collect them 
behind barriers, which the average 
tourist is not permitted to pass. For 
the same reason they -were provided 
some eight or ten years ago with 
white robes, wliicii, while, of course, 
desirable in many ways, add a fresh 
toucli of strangeness to a spectacle 
already sufficiently bizarre. 

Many of the mummies have, ho-w- 
ever, undergone sucli changes in the 
singular process to wliich tiiey have 
been subjected that it is very diflJi- 
cult to believe that they have ever 
been human beings. Thus tlie horror 
of the scene is mitigated and made 
bearable. The Mexican custom of 
separating the sexes holds even here, 
for me women are ranged on one 
side, the men on the other, each 
standing in a line, forty or fifty 
strong-, on a little stone bench erected 
for the purpose. The best preserved 



Seven Mexican Cities. 



25 



figure is that of an elderly priest, a 
man renowned for piety and learning 
and a friend of our little guide, as he 
proudly informed us. This venerable 
prelate, clad in his black robes, has 
the place of honor against the far- 
ther wall, between the two ranks, his 
placid face not very clear in the 
half light, yet seeming to wear still 
an expression of benign sweetness. 
But sometimes only fragments of 
bodies are found mummified. There 
are, for instance, quite a number of 
heads preserved in the collection. 
It is with a feeling almost as 



though resurrected from the final 
death that we emerged once more 
to light and air and space, and turn 
again to the picturesque little city, 
sweet with flowers and radiant with 
sunshine. Mummies and all, 

Guanajuato is the most picturesque 
place in Mexico, one which an ar- 
tist would delight in, and where 
every person, no matter what his 
trade, habit or previous condition of 
servitude, ought to spend at least a 
day in order to learn just what old 
Mexico was before Progress laid its 
spell upon the country. 



C^HAF=TEFR IV. 



Queretaro, a City of Memories — Splendid Churches That 
Were Old When the Declaration of Independence Was Signed 
— A Viceregal Conspirator — ^^The Story of "La Corrigidora" 
— An Andrew Carnegie of the Eighteenth Century — The End 
of An Epic— Where Maximilian Was Imprisoned and Executed 
— Relics of an Emperor — Weavers of Cloth and Grinders of 
Opals— Queretaro 's Splendidly Organized Educational System. 



UERETARO is one of the most 
interesting- cities in Mexico. 
It is practically unknown to 
the average tourist, except 
as the name of a station on 
the Mexican Central Railroad, 
at which g-audlly colored 
opals are offered him for 
purchase. As usual with most Mexi- 
can towns, the railroad passes the 
city at some distance, and all its 
lovely church-towers and busy 
streets are hardly visible from the 
train. A queer little, asthmatic 
street car, drawn by an unneces- 
sarily large number of mules and of- 
ficered by a ridiculous superfluity of 
drivers, conductors, inspectors and 
other functionaries, conveys one from 
the station to the center of the city. 
We arrived and departed by night, 
and our impressions of this ride of 
less tlian a mile were limited to the 
Ill-lighted and crowded interior of 
this funny little car. It deposited 
ug in a "plaza" full of tall trees, 
odorous with flowers and vocal with 
birds and music — for at 10 o'clock 
the band was still playing in the 
kiosk in the middle of the verdant 
obscurity, and all the people of 
Queretaro that amounted to anything, 
were gathered in that romantic and 
perfumed square. The incandescent 
lights burning in the walks only 
made the mysterious charm of the 
spot more evident. 

Our hotel looked into this square, 
the very heart and center of the 
city. Just beyond we could gaze into 
a market-place, the entrance to 
which was marked by a tall stone 
arch, surmounting a fountain and 
the life-sized statue of a Triton. In 
the morning the market was crowded 
with hundreds of vendors, but after 
the sun went down it, too, became 
a place of silence and of mystery. 



Silence and mystery! There are 
the qualities which belong to Quere- 
taro above all others. For the city 
is filled with memories of great 
men and great events, and its life 
is lived largely in the past. Its 
40,000 inhabitants are, for the most 
part, poor. Its monuments are little 
visited, its thrilling- story seldom 
told. Even the native, basking- in 
the midday sunshine, hardly knows 
how to answer your inquiry as to the 
dwelling places of the historic 
personages whose fame is indis- 
solubly associated with the city. It 
is only by sheer accident that you 
happen to hear the strang-e, true 
stories that make up the history of 
the city. 

Queretaro was not its original 
name. The Indians, who had a set- 
tlement here long before the Spanish 
ventured northward from the City of 
Mexico, called it Querendaro — "A 
Place Surrounded by Mountains." 
But the aboriginal village was 
destroyed by the Conquistadores un- 
der Tapia in 1531, and a Christian 
city founded on its site. These first 
white inhabitants called tlie place 
'-Queretaro de Santiago," an* by that 
name it has toeen kno^vn ever since. 
It was not long before the little 
city became famous for its climate, 
probably the most salubrious in 
i.lexico. Gouty viceroys found it 
worth while to transfer their resi- 
dence for a time from the gay capi- 
tal to Queretaro, where either the 
religious quiet of the town, or its 
healing air, or both combined, 
wrought perpetual miracles in their 
shattered healths. Not only the 
viceroys came. Members of the 
viceregal families journeyed north- 
ward at frequent intervals and were 
g-uests in the magnificent convents 
and monasteries which soon beg-an 
to be erected in the city. 



28 



Seven Mexican Cities. 



For, fiom the beginning', Queretaro 
was a city of cliurches. Except 
Celaya, which lies in the Valley of 
Laja, not more than twenty miles 
away, there was no city In old 
Mexico where the power and grand- 
eur of the church attained more 
picturesque proportions than in 
Queretaro. Fifty great churches and 
sixteen convents still exist, after 
war, confiscation and vandalism 
have done their worst. Some of them 
are of genuine interest. The Tere- 
sitas, where Maximilian and Mendez 
were imprisoned together for a short 
time, is a vast pile, now the dwell- 
ing place of 300 friars and students. 



ancient music, was added only 
a century ago. In fact, a profitable 
article as long again as this present 
screed might be written about the 
churches of Queretaro alone, -espe- 
cially as through various for- 
tunate circumstances the religious 
orders seem to be recovering their 
prestige in the old city, along with 
some of their former possessions. 

It is strange that in this very hot- 
bed of viceregal and priestly con- 
servatism, more plots against Mexi- 
can rulers -have been fomente.d than 
in any other town in the country—^ 
excepting the capital, of course. The 
first event which stands out con- 




The Church of L.a Cruz, Q,ueretaro. 



The Federal Palace occupies a part 
of the Convent of St. Augustin and is 
renowned throughout Mexico for the 
beauty of its architecture and the 
richness of the superbly carved 
stone galleries surrounding the 
courtyard. The old church of San 
Francisco, ■whicli in 1863 was created 
the Cathedral of the diocese, was 
founded almost immediately after the 
Spaniards acquired possession of the 
town. As it stands to-day, a quaint 
and lovely old structure, it repre- 
sents the result of many decades of 
patient labor; for though pronounced 
complete in 1698. it was frequently 
repaired and altered, the last time 
in 1727. The beautiful choir, 
a mass of carved oak, now 
black with age, inclosing a tall music 
rack full of enormous volumes of 



spicuously in the history of the city 
is connected with the conspiracy of 
Iturrigaray to secede from Spain and 
establish in this ancient Aztec domin- 
ion a new and more liberal govern- 
ment. Iturrigaray was viceroy at the 
time. Whether he really meditated 
rebellion or not, is one of the moot 
points of local history. But it is 
well remembered that when the news 
of his projected movement reached 
the patriotic junta, which then 
governed Spain, not only w^as he ar- 
rested and deported, but half-a-dozen 
prominent men in Queretaro also, 
including the Intendant. 

Only a few years later, in a house 
adjoining the Gran Hotel, and* over- 
looking the beautiful Plaza Mayor, 
another and more memorable con- 
spiracy had its origin. This house, 



Seven Mexican Cities. 



29 



two stories high and not in any way 
distinguished from its fellows, whicli 
it accurately resembles, dates back 
to the beginning of the nineteenth 
century. In ISIO it was the home 
of Miguel Dominguez, the then 
•"Corrigidor," or Mayor. Dominguez 
is one of those unselfish, devoted, 
high-minded men whose careers 
adorn every page of Mexican history. 
His name, and that of his wife are 
household words whenever the an- 
nals of Mexico's "War of Liberty" are 
known. He was the friend of Hidalgo, 
the curate of Dolores, who headed the 
first revolt against the Spanish. It 
was in Dominguez's house in Quere- 



to join Hildago and his patriot raga- 
mutfins in the mountains. She was 
punished in his stead. The oppressor 
could not lay hands on the rebel, 30 
he sought a vicarious sacrifice, and 
the "Corrigidora" paid the penalty. 
The building is kept in good repair, 
and is one of the places wliich no one 
who goes to Queretaro should over- 
look, not only for the sake of the 
noble women martyred there, but for 
its own quaint beauty, and for that 
of the flower-crowded square over 
which it looks. 

This square is called "Independen- 
cia." In the middle of it, as I have 
said, is the statue of the Marquis 




Memorial Chapel at the Hill of the Bells, Near Q,neretaro. 



taro that Hidalgo planned the move- 
ment that brought death to him and 
independence to his country. 

i.n another part of the town, in 
front of tlie delicious little plaza, 
in which stands the statue of the 
Marquis de Aguila, the tourist is 
shown a long, low, yellow building 
with a "portal" in front of it. Now- 
adays the city uses it as a "Palacio 
Municipal." To Mexican patriots it 
is much more than that. It is a 
shrine. For here the wife of Dornin- 
guez, the "Corrigidora," whose name 
is always spoken ■with reverence 
in Mexico, and whose statue 
stands in an honored place in Mexico 
City, spent the weary years of her 
imprisonment. She was arrested by 
the Spanish after her husband fled 



de Aguila — de Villar del Valle de 
Aguila, to give him the whole sonor- 
ous appellation to wliich he is en- 
titled. The statue is carved out of 
gray stone and is somewhat weather 
worn now, but gives a good idea of 
tlie eigliteenth century grandee it 
represents. A fountain bubbles at 
his foot and a tablet states that the 
construction of a monument in 
memory of the Marquis was begun 
in 1843 on this spot; that the statue 
was dismounted in 1867, during the 
siege of the place, by a cannon-shot 
from the Liberalists' batteries, and 
that it was re-erected only a few 
years ago. Queretaro owes honor to 
the memory of this ricla, eccentric, 
benevolent old Don. He was one of 
tlie founders of her excellent educa- 



30 



Seven Mexican Cities. 



tional system, and he built at his 
own expense the famous aqueduct 
which brings water to the city from 
the mountains. The work cost him 
nearly $100,000, and was carried on 
under his own direction. When it 
was finished he caused the dates to 
be inscribed on two arches, one re- 
cording the beginning and the other 
the ending of the work, and there 
they stand to-day, for anyone to see. 
The personalitJ^ however, which, 
more than any other, dominates 
Queretaro is .Maximilian. Here was 
planned the movement that brought 
the ill-fated Austrian Archduke to 
the throne. Here are the churches 



it belonged had great possessions 
in the city and the country surround- 
ing it. Maximilian was confined 
in a room on the second floor 
of the attached monastery; the 
broken glass in one w^indow attracts 
attention even from the heedless 
passer-by. It was in that room that 
Colonel Palacios refused the historic 
bribe of $100,000 to aid the Emperor 
to escape. Access to the church to- 
day is difficult. One goes in at a 
little door quite "around the corner," 
in the house of the janitor, and 
passes through his living-rooms in 
order to secure access to the painted 
and pictured shrine. There, an 




<'<)urtyar«i of tho Plaeio Federal, Formerly the Aii^ni»<lnian Convent, 

Gucretaro. 



of La Cruz and the Capuchins, where 
he was confined; the theatre in 
which he was condemned to death; 
and the Cliurch of Smta Rosa, where 
his body was buried for a time. There 
is something profoundly dramatic in 
the juxtaposition of the Llaca home, 
where the conspirators first met, 
and the Capucliin Church, where 
Maximilian heard his sentence. They 
are less than a hundred feet apart. 
The Llaca house is a one-story 
residence of extremely commonplace 
exterior, the walls painted a dull 
rose, the windows barred witli iron 
in tlie familiar Mexican style. The 
Church of the Capuchins is a fine old 
pile, dating from the palmy days of 
Queretaro, when the order to which 



atmosphere of sweet serenity affects 
one gratefully, in the midst of the 
gilded altars and tall, ghostly, un- 
lighted wax tapers. But that is all 
which it is now possible to see of the 
place. The rest of the building has 
been converted into a nunnery and 
girls' school; the apartments associa- 
ted with the. Emperor have been 
altered beyond recognition. 

The Church of La Cruz, where Max- 
milian was confined after his sur- 
render at the Sierra de las Cam- 
panas, is on the outskirts of the city. 
It is a bare old place, only interesting 
on account of its history. When w^e 
visited it, carpenters and masons 
were busy all over the interior. The 
aitars were stripped, and the crazy 




Seven Mexican CitiEvS. 



31 



pavement made walking tedious if 
not dangerous. It is, nevertheless, 
a very interesting experience 
to wander through the cool 
aisles and shadowy chapels within, 
where there is yet preserved a 
miraculous stone cross and many 
quaint old pictures. Every inch of 
the ground is sacred, for in these dim 
vaults Liberal and Imperialist more 
than once fought desperately, and 
patriot blood has consecrated them 



and Mejia occupied in the early days 
of their captivity. Soldiers were 
everywhere, most of them stretched 
on the flagstones fast asleep. The 
Emperor's prison is now used as an 
office, and consists of three rooms, 
only one of which opens on the cor- 
ridor. Absolutely bare of decoration, 
the place is fascinating because it 
has remained architectually unal- 
tered ever since the Emperor was 
here. The walls are scaling, but no 




The Capuchin. Church In Guerctaro, Mnxlni: lian'.s Last Pri.son. 



a hundred times. La Cruz was the 
key to the defenses of Queretaro, of 
which it formed a part, and it was a 
postern gate in its wall that the 
traitor, Lopez, opened to the enemy, 
on the fatal night in 1867. The vast 
college building which grows out of 
one side of the church, like some 
deformity, is now^ a barracks. The 
commandant courteously conducted 
us through the long, echoing, vaulted 
corridors illuminated only from the 
fan lights high up in the wall; up 
many flights of stone stairs, to the 
rooms which Maximilian, Miramon 



paint brush is permitted to touch 
them. They remain as they were in 
Maximilian's day, but the furniture 
he used has long ago disappeared. 

It was from the Capuchin Church 
that Maximilian, Miramon and Mejia 
were taken, at daybreak one June 
morning, to the Hill of the Bells, 
on the outskirts of the city, to be 
be shot. They still tell in Quere- 
taro how the prisoners, each in a 
coach by himself, made their way 
silently through an immense con- 
course of mute and sympathizing 
citizens. For years the spot where 



32 



Seven Mexican Cities. 



the three were executed was marked 
only by three little heaps of broken 
rock. About twenty years ago as 
many stone pillars were erected 
there, and inclosed by a neat bronze 
railing. But vandalism is one of 
the curses of Mexico; and this simple 
monument was soon desecrated. 
In 1889 the Austrian Government 
built upon the spot a handsome 
stone chapel, in the pavement of 
w^hich three massive tablets are dedi- 
cated to the memory of the hapless 
Emperor and his two devoted Gener- 
als. 

Queretaro Is full of relics of Maxi- 
milian. The town was always loyal 
to him. In a tiny little shop I was 
shown the golden keys presented to 
him when he made his first entry 
into the city. They were very mas- 
sive, very handsome, and lay on 
scarlet velvet in a carved mahogany 
case. The shop-keeper wanted $3,000 
for the relic. Alas, I could not pur- 
chase at the price. "Never mind," 
she comiorted; "I have kept them 
thirty years, there is no haste." 
Doubtless, but for the price, which is 
prohibitive, these keys would now re- 
pose along with other interesting 
articles connected with the last Mexi- 
can Empire, in the museum in the 
"Palacio" of the State Government, 
where the curious may see the 
hideous wooden coffin in which Max- 
milian's riddled body was brought 
back from the place of execution. 
Here, too, are the -table, the chairs, 
the pens, etc., used at the court- 
martial which met in the Theatro 
Iturbide and condemned him to death. 
The collection is fascinatingly inter- 
esting, but profoundly sad, with the 
suggestion of greatness past and 
lofty birth dishonored. 

The State of Queretaro, in which 
the city is located, is very poor. The 
greater part of it is an agricultural 
country, where wheat and corn are 
raised. The natives make little use 
of modern machinery or methods, and 
cling to the crooked-stick plow and 
the ox-team. In a few places sugar 
cane is now cultivated. On the 
whole, the peasantry, like the dwell- 
ers - in the city itself, are rootedly 
conservative. The Spanish imposed 
their yoke on them three hundred 
years ago; Hidalgo fought for their 
political freedom; Maximilian came, 
ruled and died, but they have not 
changed in the midst of all these 
changes. 

The city itself depends largely 



upon these impoverished and back- 
ward outlying districts. Its ctuei; 
manufactures are the weaving of 
rebosos and the cutting of opals, both 
cottage industries. In the poorer 
quarters almost every house is 
equippe'd with a loom, where mem- 
bers of the family alternate in the 
management of the brightly-colored 
yarns. Queretaro rebosos are in de- 
mand, and in the picturesque market 
they may always be seen offered for 
sale, a patch of delicious color, spread 
on the bare ground for the inspection 
of customers. The opal workers pro- 
cure the stone from the mountains 
and break it from the surrounding 
cyst with tweezers. It is very in- 
teresting to see them at work. They 
wrench the rock away from the gem 
with almost reckless energy, but with 
a deftness which long practice has 
made infallible. The rough jewel is 
fixed with wax on the end of a 
stick and ground smooth on a grind- 
stone. The polish Is obtained by fric- 
tion with sandpaper. The process is 
amazingly crude, but the results are 
beautiful. The artisan esteems him- 
self skillful if he turns out twenty 
finished opals a day. There are hints 
that wax and other substances are 
employed to add temporarily to the 
brilliancy, and hence to the value of 
the stones. However that may be, 
Queretaro's opals are famous. 

One great agency is now at work 
in Queretaro which promises much 
for the future. The school system 
is one of the best in Mexico, and 
certainly the richest. In many re- 
spects it resembles that instituted in 
New Orleans, through the operation 
of the McDonogh bequest. Josefa 
Vergara, a rich and pious woman, 
died thirty years ago, leaving her 
large fortune to the municipality to 
be used "for the benefit of the poor." 
This fund, to which has been added 
the bequests of the Marquis de Aguila 
and Timoteo Jaufregul, has been the 
means not only of founding and 
establishing numerous primary 

schools, but supports an excellent 
academy of painting, a hospital and 
various asylums. The trustees have 
also purchased scores of houses 
whicli ■ are let to the poor at nomi- 
nal rentals. Altogether, the Ver- 
gara bequest has wrought powerfully 
for good in Queretaro. The education 
.and benevolence which it dispenses 
are calculated to stimulate the now 
somewhat stagnant life of the pictur- 
esque city. 



OHAF^XEFR V 



Great Chang-es Made in Recent Years in the Capital of the Mexi- 
can Republic — President Diaz as Builder and Beautifier of the 
City — The Three Homes of the Mexican Chief Executive — 
Chapultepec and Its Memories — The "Colonia Roma" — New 
York Architecture Under the Skies of Aztec Land — The 
Church in Mexico — Liberality of the Present Government in 
Religious Matters — What Art and Literature in Mexico Owe 
to the Patronag-e of the Catholic Church — The Cathedral — 
Splendor of Its Decorations — Where New Orleans Mig-ht 
Imitate Mexico. 



VHwHE self-satisfaction with which 
Y / the average American regards 
\ / everything Mexican gets 
($) V?" several rude shocks on the 
journey from the frontier to 
; the City of Mexico. But it is 

;^ ^ only in the capital Itself that 
the full extent ^f our'. errors 
regarding the intelfjgence and 
capacrtj' of the Mexican ^people is ap- 
parent. In the United States W€ have 
been too busy for many years to 
spare much thought to our neighbors 
on the 'South, and wha|:"_ the^ have 
contributed to civilization has been, 
unfortunately, a record .-with which i^ 
we have not cared to make oiirsely^g'^' 
acquainted. We have been' prone^to ; 
accept as true J;he Jibellous State- 
ment that ^Mexico '"1^ still a.- turbu-^ ^ 
le^rit land, .filways ripe>;-f^r revoiu-''- 
lutioh, and- only" keptr.'in/ the' paths 
of peace and pro'gi-fss ,by the iron' 

-hand of President Diaz. W^e hjlve 
taken for granted i-that Mexican 

! statesmen are merely in^^politics for 
their own personal benefit, an,d' not'' 
actuated by unselfish "#r patriotic 
motives. ' How far these ideas vary 
from the fact it needs only a short > 
residence in the Mexican capital to 
disclose. Tlianks to ■ the ' energy and' 
enterprise of the governing classes,;; 
the appearance of 'the city has been ' 
transformed within the last ten years. 
To-day it is far more of a great 
modern: capital than most American 
cities of equal populai'tion. The streets 
havftsbeen well 4paved, chiefly wi-^. 
asphalt. Electric lights and electrio 
street cars are everywhere. The 
sewerage and drainage systems are 
among the best in the world. The 
parks and driveways are numerous, 



beautiful, and constantly being ex- 
tended. The cleaning of the city 
is carried on daily in a more ef- 
fective and comprehensive manner 
than is the case in the average 
American city of less than 400,000 
inhabitants. The public edifices 
recently constructed have been 
models of architectural excellence. 
Hundreds of residences are being 
erected in all parts of the city, which, 
while they ^may invite criticism as 
regards their artistic merit, are 
costly and comfortable. In fact, the 
progress which Mexico has made in 
late years along all lines of municipal 
Improvement could be profitably 
studied by those who are charged 
with the administration of the public 
affairs of most of our own growing 
cities. Some of the problems which 
Mexico has had to solve have been 
extremely difficult, and the way in 
which they have been worked out 
calls for unstinted admiration. There 
are, moreover, many features of 
municipal management which could 
be applied to our own cities with ad- 
vantage, and it is in these departments 
tliat, it seems to me, the genius of 
the Mexican people is now being most 
conspicuously demonstrated. 

Few even among the rich and great 
capitals of the old world can boast 
of a location as beautiful as that of 
the City of Mexico. . It occupies 
almost the precise center of a fertile 
plain, some forty miles in diameter, 
completely girt on every side by 
high ranges of mountains. Though 
situated at a level of more than 5,000 
feet above the sea, the soil of the 
Valley of Mexico is extremely fer- 
tile, and to one looking down upon 




Seven Mexican Cities. 



35 



the smiling landscape from some 
lofty elevation — say, from Chapulte- 
pec, or the towers of the Cathedral- 
there is unfolded a delightful pano- 
rama of cultivated fields, windin:? 
roads, villages and even occasional 
clumps of willow or eucalyptus 
trees, extending to the very foot of 
the rock-ribbed hills. The high peaKs 
of Popocatepetl and Iztaccihuati, re- 
garding which every school boy is 
informed, are seldom visible from the 
streets of the city, but from Chapul- 
tepec they may be seen, crowning- the 
encircling hills to the eastward with 
spots of dazzling whiteness, hardly 
distinguishable from the clouds 
above them. Doubtless, this noble 
valley is of volcanic origin. Some 
scientists think that it is itself a 
crater, long extinct and now filled 
in with earth washed down from the 
mountains all around. There are 
many evidences of volcanic action 
among the Sierras, but hundreds of 
years have elapsed since the last 
serious eruption of Popocatepetl, and 
there are no indications to-day to 
justify us in anticipating any further 
activity on the part of these terrible 
forces of nature. 

Gazing over the valley the five 
lakes which existed there in the 
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries may 
be made out. They have shrunk 
greatly in area since then, but 
several still have a surface level 
higher than the City of Mexico. The 
danger of inundation, which for a 
century after the conquest was 
always more or less immediate, has 
now been averted once for all by the 
construction of gigantic drainage 
works, the cost of which is put at 
{20,000,000. This gigantic engineer- 
ing enterprise, conapleted only a few 
years ago, is one of the many endur- 
ing monuments that exist in the city 
and Its environs to the public spirit 
and resource of President Diaz. 
Thanks to this capable administrator. 
the task of improving and beautify- 
ing the city proceeds all the time. 
The traveler arriving in the capital 
is set down in a splendid station at 
Buena Vista, constructed of stone and 
steel, not,- of course, on the same 
vast scale as some of the railroad 
terminals in the United States, but 
superior in many respects to the 
average in our own country. While 
this improvement is not directly due 
to the Government, it seems to have 
come into existence as a result of 
the popular demand for beauty and 
convenience, educated by the numer- 
ous works of public utility con- 
structed by the municipality at the 
suggestion of President Diaz. The 
broad avenue, paved with asphalt and 
lighted by electricity, and the com- 



fortable and speedy electric street 
car which passes Buena Vista, and- 
by means of whic-h the tourist is soon 
safely deposited in tlie centei- of the 
city, at the Plaza de la Constitucion, 
are directly attributable to the ac- 
tivity of the Government. 

The Plaza itself is a fine example 
of what intelligent governmental 
supervision can accomplish. Within 
the last few years the streets sur- 
rounding it have been repaved with 
asphalt, the dimensions of tlie gar- 
dens considerably enlarged, and 
many unsightly obstructions, es- 
pecially in front of the National 
Palace, removed. To-day the place is 
picturesque and beautiful to a de- 
gree which must be a revelation to 
the American tourist, accustomed to 
the prim formality of our treeless 
public squares. The Mexican is neve/- 
content with the green lawn, studded 
with floral millinery, which does duty 
in the average American city as a 
place of general resort and recrea- 
tion. Perhaps the industry of the 
Spanish conquerors in denuding the 
land of its noble garniture of cypress 
and oak taught the natives the artis- 
tic value of nature in the wild; at 
any rate, here in the very heart of 
the capital, as in practicalty everj^ 
one of the innumerable other little 
squares that stud the city, the trees:' 
are numerous and stately, hiding 
countless shady little nooks, where 
iron benches invite the passer-by to 
linger. At the early hour when we 
first visited the spot, these retreats 
were already populous with Indian 
nursemaids and men, the former ac- 
companied by their over-dressed 
little charges, the latter idling away 
the time till they were due at their 
day's task, smoking cigarettes and 
chatting quietly as they waited. 

It is said that this splendid square 
was formerly the center of ah island, 
washed on all sides by the waters or 
Lake Texcuco, and that it was here- 
that the wandering Aztecs discovered 
an eagle perched on a cactus and 
grasping a snake in its talons — an. 
omen which they immediately con- 
strued as indicating the wish of their 
gods that a city should be erected' 
on the spot. The extraordinar>^ 
evaporation of Lake Texcuco has 
reduced it to an insignificant size- 
and left the erstwhile island of the 
eagle a part of the solid mainland. 
But when Cortez first saw the city, 
it retained all its original 
charm, and as it then was. 
surrounded by water and intersected! 
by canals, it can well be imagined 
how his spirit was stirred by its: 
beauty. At that .time a considerable 
portion of the present Plajia was: 



36 



Seven Mexican Cities. 



included In the limits of the hugo 
^leathen temple, the most sacred pare 
of which, a truncated pyramid 
crowned with towers, occupied the 
.-•Site of the present Cathedral. On the 
ariglit, where now stands the National 
yalace, was the "new house" of Monte- 
:zuma, and on the left, where the 
"'portales" are now, was a great In- 
fdian dancing scliool. The City Hall, 



opposite the Cathedral,- has displaced 
the palace of the Aztec commander- 
in-chief, and almost directly opposite 
once stood the great palace of Monte- 
zuma himself, on ground now par- 
tially occupied by the National Pawn 
Shop. All of these places and temples 
have disappeared, for the Spaniard 
was as great a foe to their buildings 
as to the Indians themselves, and de- 




One of the Chapels of the Cathedral, City of Mexico. 



Seven Mexican Cities. 



37 



Etroyed the one as ruthlessly as tho 
other. 

Cortez erected for himself a fort- 
ress-like residence on the site of 
Montezuma's "new house," and there 
for years he and his descendants 
dwelt, looking out on the doubtful 
view which the windows of their 
home commanded. For g-enerations — 
IB fact, up to within a century — the 
Plaza was encumbered with huts and 
booths, small stores, the gallows, and 
many other objects which even the 
hardy eyes of the Iberian aristocrac 
must have shuddered to gaze upon 
In 1789 the viceroy then in power 
cleared away the IncumtaranctiS 
which disfigured the place, planted 
new gardens, and greatly embellished 
those already in existence. The good 
work which was thus begun was 
continued by subsequent rulers, but 
even down to 1886 there were many 
features of the place which writers 
found cause to criticise. How syste- 
matically the present scheme of 
beautification has been carried on 
within the last eight or ten years 
no one who has not seen the place 
before that date can well imagine. 
To-day it is, as it obviously should 
be, the point to which the social and 
business life of the city converges. 

Practically everything of any 
moment which the tourist desires to 
see is concentrated either on the 
Plaza or w^ithin a short distance of 
it. Of the great Cathedral I shall 
have occasion to speak later. The 
National Palace, which overlooks one 
whole side of the square, is recom- 
mended to visitors chiefly by the 
many historical events with which it 
is connected. The present structure 
was begun in 1692, and represents 
an orderly, but unpremeditated, 
aggregation of different structures 
added, one after the other, as the 
need for them arose, since that date. 
The enormous length of the facade — 
over 600 feet — is impressive by 
reason of magnitude, but from the 
point of beauty there is littlef to 
recommend this long, low, two- 
storied wall, pierced by two rows of 
monotonous windows, and barely re- 
lieved from utter commonplaceness 
by the little sentry boxes at the 
three arched entrances, and the 
statue-crowned turrets that break 
the outline of the roof at regular 
intervals. The huge patios within 
are worth seeing, merely for their 
size, but the effort of scaling the 
high staircases scarcely repays itself, 
even for the opportunity to view the 
hall in which the Mexican Congress 
meets, or the stately apartment in 
which President Diaz is supposed to 
meet the ambassadors and other 
representatives of foreign nations 



that may solicit that honoi\ The- 
apartments assigned to the President 
are commodious, but Diaz seems to be 
a man of simple tastes, and prefers 
to transact public business from" 
his own residence, a simple stone: 
building some distance from the- 
Palace, and not distinguished by any 
particula' ity from hundreds of its"- 
neighbors. 

The summer residence of the Mexi- 
can rulers has usually been at 
Chapultepec, whither President Diaz, 
generally goes in June, and where- 
he likes to remain till well along ire 
the fall. It is impossible to imagine- 
a statelier home than this spleijdid 
palace, erected on the brow of a jhill 
200 feet high, and overlooking 'the- 
city three miles away, and command- 
•ihg a superb view of- the valley. 
Cliapultepec is a huge mass of stone- 
thrust up abruptly from the flonr of 
the valley, apparently as a result of 
some prehistoric volcanic citaclysm. 
Its isolation has from the ver\^ 
earliest times made it a desirable- 
military station. Whoever holds 
Chapultepec, controls the City of 
Mexico. The Aztecs apparently real- 
ized this fundamental strategic fact,, 
for they appear to have had a primi- 
tive fortress here. The Spanish were- 
prompt to see its importance, and 
under the early viceroys. first 
a fortress and then a military schooP 
were established among the cypresses^ 
of the great hill. In the Mexican 
War the American troops stormed" 
and took the castle after a desperate 
resistance, the story of which is one- 
of the most heroic in any language,, 
and which every patriotic Mexican> 
recalls with pardonable pride. Like- 
wise, the' fate of the Emperor 
Maximilian was determined when- 
the Liberal forces scaled the cliffs-, 
some forty years ago. With his capi- 
tal in the hands of Juarez, it was^ 
only a question of time when the Im- 
perial government should collapse,- 
as collapse it did within a few short 
months, ending what is, all things- 
considered, the most dramatic episode- - 
in all the dramatic history of Mexico. 

It is a little strange that the charrn> 
of Chapulteoec as a summer home- 
should not have struck the Spanish' 
viceroys from the very first. The- 
good Galvez was, however, the first of 
them to erect a summer home on the 
summit of the hill. 'After his tima- 
the rulers of Mexico found pleasure- 
in adding to and beautifying the 
place. When Maximilian and Car- 
lotta reached Mexico, fresh from the> 
enchanting landscape of Miramar^ 
they undertook to make Chapultepec- 
a rival of that little Austrian para- 
dise. The extensive repairs and 
alterations which they began were- 



38 



Seven Mexican Cities. 



mever entirely completed. After tlie 
-fall of the empire, the palace went 
unused for some time. President 
Lerdo was the first of the constitu- 
tional rulers of Mexico to make his 
summer home there, and he only re- 
mained a few weeks. It is to Presi- 
dent Diaz that the castle is mostlj' 
indebted for its present splendor. For 
over twenty years he has annually 
turned thither at the advent of the 
■warm weather. The huge build- 



is a view which is reckoned among 
the most wonderful in the world. 

The carriage road by which the 
average visitor approaches the castla 
winds in and out among the huge 
cypresses at the base of the hllL 
Many of these venerable trees ,aro 
twenty feet in diameter at the 
ground. Humboldt, when he visitd 
the place, estimated the age of one 
of the largest of them at 1,600 years. 
Nowadays they all form parts of a 




Faeade o£ t lie Cathedral, City of Mexico. 



;lng on the brow of the hill has been 
virtually reconstructed under his 
superintendence. The old outlines 
have been retained, but the interior 
.has been modernized on a scale which 
would dazzle and- perhaps disappoint 
the ancient lordlings of Mexico, could 
-they revisit the spot to-day. The 
-.decorations are largely in the Pom- 
■peiian style, the furniture rich and 
■glowing with red and gold. The 
^'•hanging" gardens — they are worthy 
of the name— are inexpressibly beauti- 
tul, and from the walks along the 
■crest of tlie precipitous descent there 



truly magnificent park. Ten or 
.welve years ago the approaches to 
Chapultepec left much to be desired 
in the way of stateliness, but all that 
has been rectified. The addition of 
an ornamental kiosk, containing a 
restaurant, offers another inducement 
for luxurious idlers to frequent the 
spot. The Jockey Club is building: 
for itself a home not far away, and a 
race_ course is also spoken of and will 
eventually be constructed, no doubt. 
At any rate, the park is steadily 
being extended on all sides, and la 
kept in a high state of cultivation, 
presenting a scene of tropical beauty 



Seven Mexican Citii<:s. 



39 



iiardly to be excelled anywhere else 
in the vorld. 

It is one of the greatest pleasures 
open to the traveler to return from 
■Chapultepec in the late evening by 
•w&y of the Paseo de la Reforma, 
the magnificent driveway whicli 
Mexico owes to the taste of Car- 
lota. It was planned as an approach 
to Chapultepec, and almost through- 
out its length the hill and the castle 
are to be seen, lifting themselves 
high up above the trees which adorn 
the sides of the avenue. The Paseo 
is fully 100 feet wide, the drive paved 
with smoothly-rolled gravel and 
flaked by broad sidewalks. A row of 
•ornamental bronze electric ligiit 
posts runs directly down the middle, 
dividing tlie road into two parts, by 
whicli means tlie procession of car- 
riages -wliicli assembles liere nearly 
every afternoon is kept from falling 
into confusion. The margin of tlie 
sidewalk is fringed with pedestals, 
alternately supporting bronze figures 
of illustrious Mexicans and large 
vases of tlie same expensive material. 
These stand at intervals of fifty or 
a hundred yards all the way to 
Chapultepec and constitute a very ef- 
fective rival to Berlin's famous 
"Sieges Allee." The stately mansions 
■which have been erected along the 
Paseo are inhabited by the richest 
and most distinguished element in 
the population of the city; they do" 
not, however, continue in unbroken 
succession all the w^ay to the castle. 
Near Chapultepec the empty fields 
appear through the clustering trees, 
and the advertisements of numerous 
real estate agents attract attention 
to the fact that Mexico is in the 
throes of a "boom." 

Through a variety of causes, 'some 
of which appear obscure, the City of 
Mexico is enjoying a touch of genuine 
American "prosperity." The prices 
of living are higlier than usual. Rents 
have advanced almost as definiteb; 
as they have in New Orleans. As a 
consequence, there has been a con- 
siderable development of the suburbs, 
hundreds of people investing their 
savings there in lots and small 
houses, and moving out to the edge 
iyt the city, rather than reside in the 
center of town, in the hope of lessen- 
ing their expenditures. The most 
attractive of the new "colonies" is 
that called "Roma," through which 
the traveler passes on his way from 
Chapultepec to the city. The houses 
which are being erected here are 
largely departures from the old 
"khan"' style, so familiar throughout 
Mexico and so admirably suited to its 
climate. The taste of the builders has 
apparently been vitiated by a study 
of our own cheap adaptations of Geor- 
gian and Queen Ann architecture. It 



is little short of pitiable to firfa, 
under the perennially blue Mexican 
skies, steep hip-roofs designed to 
shed the snow of a stormier and 
colder land. Yet this is what the 
Colonia Roma exhibits without the 
sliglitest apparent appreciation of the 
incongruity. When this flourishing 
little suburb is completed, it will 
differ in no essential respect from 
Fifth Avenue. Tlie buildings are, 
many of tliem, just as costly as any 
in New York, but the gross lack of 
harmony between their architecture 
g.nd tlie environment and the crasa 
indifference to tlie liistorical asso- 
ciations witli which the Valley of 
Mexico teems are amazing. The 
"klian'' type of dwelling is so per- 
fectly fitted to life in a warm coun- 
try that it is a source of astonish- 
ment to me that New Orleans has not 
patterned after the older sections of 
Mexico, and made, that style a 
favorite with the builders of expen- 
sive lionies. On the other hand, here 
is Mexico, breaking away from its 
ideals^ and embarking in the un- 
worthy business of imitating the imi- 
tations wliich have so long marred 
tiie loveliness of American cities, 
even in those sections of the United 
States where the temperature ap- 
proximates most nearly that of the 
Valley of Mexico. 

The City of Mexico has nothing 
more beautiful to show a visitor 
than its churches, of which over 300 
still remain. For generations the 
entire intellectual and artistic life 
of the country centered in its re- 
ligious establishments. The educa- 
tional system was practically under 
the control of the church, the in- 
fluence of which exerted a profound 
effect upon all the literature pro- 
duced prior to the year 1S59, when 
Jaurez suppressed the Catholic or- 
ders. .This was true to such a de- 
gree than when the National Library 
was established in the old Church of 
San Augustin, there was little or 
nothing to put in it except the books 
rifled from convents and monaster- 
ies. In spite of the numerous 
modern works which have been ac- 
quired since, the bulk of the col- 
lection there to-day is composed of 
theological works and volumes of 
ecclesiastical history. 

The same was true of painting and 
sculpture, the artists finding their 
most munificent, if not their 
only patrons, among the fathers 
of the religious orders. The Academy 
of Fine Arts, which came into exis- 
tence mucli in the same fashion that 
the National Library did, is filled 
witli the spoils of the religious 
establishments. Of course, this in- 
stitution existed under the name of 
the Academy of San Carlos long be- 



40 



Seven Mexican Cities. 



fore Juarez issued his famous decree 
from Vera Cruz, from wiiicii dates the 
impoverishment of the Church of 
Mexico; but its galleries were bare 
and poor indeed until enriched by 
the treasures of art sequestered from 
the church. The names of Murillo 
Van Dyck, Rubens and scores of 
lesser masters, which figure in the 
catalog-ue to-day, would hardly have 
been there if it had not been for 
the ancient zeal and wealth of the 
Mexican Church, expended in the 
cause of art many years ago. 



architectural genius. They are still 
used by the clergy- for religious pur- 
poses much as they were in the olden 
time. The priests take a proper 
pride in maintaining them in good 
order. The leniency of the present 
administration in this respect has 
excited considerable discussion in 
Mexico, where it is one of the 
pretexts which have been seized upon 
ito stir up opposition to President 
Diaz. Presumably, however, the 
President feels sufficiently assured 
of his power to disregard the mur~ 




Fruit Vendor in the Suburbs of Mexico. 



The despoiling of the churches, 
however, has robbed them only of 
extrinsic ornaments. The structures 
themselves remain to-day in all essen- 
tial particulars unchanged, . precisely 
as they were when the title passed 
from their builderg to the Govern- 
ment. Under tlie constitution of the 
'Republic, the ownership of real 
estate by religious organizations is 
illegal. This statute secures to the 
Federal power scores of noble struc- 
tures, which, like the Cathedral, rep- 
resent the fine flower of Mexican 



murs of the anti-clerical party, for 
he has so far shown no intention to 
enforce the law in its most stringent 
form, but, on the contrary, exhibits 
from year to year a more and more 
liberal disposition in interpreting it. 
Consequently one finds to-day elab- 
orate repairs and restorations in 
progress in many of the hand- 
somest churches in Mexico City. At 
Guadeloupe, the shrine of all others, 
the most sacred and famous in 
Mexico, the lovely church was at 
the time of our visit being painted 



Seven Mexican Cities. 



41 



and gilded in a sumptuous and ex- 
pensive manner; the famous silver 
railing-, weigliing twenty-six tons, 
and vi^orth fully $1,000,000, is still 
there, and the pomp and ceremony 
of an older day are being revived. 

The greatest and most beautiful of 
the Mexican churches is, however, 
the Cathedral. As everyone knows, 
it was begun in 1753 and finished in 
1771, at a total cost of about $2,000,- 
000 — a sum which, considering the 
purchasing power of money a cen- 
tury or so ago, must be multiplied 
four or five times to give an ade- 
quate idea of the immense expendi- 
tures involved. It is impossible 
here to insert all the interesting 
particulars of measurement, etc., 
which the guide books supply; suffice 
it, then, to mention merely that the 
height of the ceiling is 179 feet, that 
the interior is 287 feet wide by 177 
feet deep; that the towers are 203 
feet high, and that all the other di- 
mensions of the stately- pile are on 
the same scale. We were fortunate 
in paying our first visit to the Ca- 
thedral at 7 o'clock in the morning, 
and in finding mass in progress be- 
fore the main altar. It was a scene 
of such beauty and grandeur that it 
left the spectator almost breathless 
with awe and admiration. The main 
altar stands in the middle of the 
church where the aisles cross, and is 
in the form of a pavilion, quite de- 
tached from the surrounding col- 
umns, vaults and chapels. It rises 
in a series of circular tabernacles, 
one imposed upon the other, each 
adorned with pillars of oynx, much 
gilding, life-sized statues painted in 
brilliant hues, and other sumptuous 
accessories. Before this imposing 
structure, -on a platform encircled by 
bronze railings, stood a group of 
twenty priests, each dressed in the 
most magnificent style, some in cloth 
of gold studded with gems, others in 
costly lace, others still in red and 
purple. The light of numerous tall 
candles, in silver candlesticks ten 
feet high, sparkled on these glitter- 
ing dresses, while the early morning 
sunshine, struggling through the 
stained glass in the clerestory win- 
dows, added a wealth of color to the 
gorgeous scene. Clouds of incense 
whirled to and fro; the music of a 
choir of boys echoed down the five 
lofty naves; a silver bell rung vio- 
lently at the elevation of the host; 
the mysterious associations of the 
place, its strange and romantic his- 
tory — all these powerfully affected 
the imagination. 

The glory of the Cathedral is its 
chapels. They are seven in number, 
three on each side, and one, the most 
splendid of all, that of the Kings, at 



the rear extremity of the central 
aisle. The Chapel of the Kings la 
so called because Iturbide and Maxi- 
milian were crowned within it. It Is 
a huge, semi-circular mass of carved 
and gilded wood, in what is culled 
the churriguerresQue style. It is im- 
possible to indicate in words the 
amazing complexity and richness of 
this decoration. The carving is as 
delicate and abundant as that iipon 
a costly picture-frame; the gold- 
leaf is of the most massive sort; 
and enclosed in this elaborate fret- 
work are many excellent statuettes, 
colored as in life, and some good 
paintings by Mexican artists. Under 
the altar are buried the heads of 
Hidalgo, Allende, Aldema and other 
heroes of the Mexican War of Lib- 
erty. In the smaller -chapels the 
same gorgeous scheme of decoration 
is carried out with even more be- 
wildering beauty, some of them be- 
ing practically solid masses of gold, 
formed into the shapes of flowers, 
fruit, cornice, column and buttress. 
When the light falls upon these 
wonderful walls the impression of 
superlative wealth is almost unen- 
durable. In many of these chapels 
are relics, not only of religious, but 
of historical and even secular inter- 
est. In one you see the casket in 
which lie the bones of Hidalgo, sur- 
rounded by scores of wreaths; other 
scores of which lie piled upon the 
coffin of Escobedo, the gallant sol- 
dier who overcame Maximilian. In 
the adjoining chapel, Iturbide, the 
real "liberator" of Mexico, lies bur- 
ied. In still another, are the paint- 
ings and crucifixes used in the priv- 
ate chapels of Maximilian and Car- 
lotta. The sarcophagus of Zumar- 
raga, the first Mexican Archbishop, 
who died in 154S, bears mute testi- 
mony to the antiquity of the great 
building in which it stands. 

The City of Mexico contains so 
much to interest and instruct that 
this article might be extended al- 
most indefinitely, without having 
done justice to half of them. The 
impression, however, which was made 
upon my mind by the first sight of 
the stately buildings of which I have 
spoken above, and which was deep- 
ened and -strengthened every hour 
I spent in the capital, was one of ad- 
miration for the forceful personality 
of the illustrious man to whose in- 
itiative the present attractiveness of 
the city is due. It is impossible to 
study very long the admirable re- 
sults which have been achieved in 
Mexico under the wise rule of Pres- 
ident Diaz without wishing that 
something of the same thing might 
be done in New Orleans. The genius 
of American civilization does not per- 



42 



Seven Mexican Cities. 



mit the existence of a despotism so 
absolute as that which the Mexican 
President enjoys, but whether the 
means commend themselves to us or 
not, the results are certainly ad- 
mirable and worthy of imitation. 
If New Orleans could be paved, 
drained, sewered, lighted and adorned 
in the same way with churches, li- 
braries, art g-alleries, schools and all 
the other appurtenances of advanced 



civilizatiori, it would be not less 
lovely than the City of Mexico. It 
must be a matter of deep regret to 
the traveler coming from New Or- 
leans to a city only a little larger, 
only a little more prosperous, and 
one which has enjoyed even less op- 
portunities in the way of peace and 
good government, to find his native 
place outstripped by the Altec capi- 
tal. 



c:::HAF=»-rEFR vi 



Down the Mountains to the Gulf Coast — Over the Oldest Railroad 
in the Mexican Republic — Superb Scenery in Maltrata Valley 
and Metlac Canyon — Important Public Works in Progrress at 
Vera Cruz — Sanitating- the City — The Sewage and Water 
Systems — Improvement in the Health Conditions. 



NE of the most interesting 
experiences which comes to 
the traveler in Mexico is the 
railroad journey from the 
Capital to Vera Cruz, over 
the Mexican Railroad. Start- 
ing early in the morning' 
from the handsome station at Buena- 
vista, midday finds him at Esperanza, 
2,000 feet above his starting point, 
and nearly half-Tvay to the coast. 
From this point to P.aso del Macho 
the track turns and twists among 
the spurs of the Cordillera, spanning 
bottomless ravines on spidery steel 
bridges, surmounting obstacles 

which the engineers at first deemed 
impossible to overcome, plunging 
into and out of dark, smoky little 
tunnels, and meanw^hile running 
down grades so steep that they are 
positively startling. Then, from 
Paso del Macho to Vera Cruz, 
through a country only a couple of 
hundred feet above sea- level, the 
road runs through tropical wilder- 
nesses of wild fig, cedar and mahog- 
any. Finally, as evening shuts in, 
the domes and towers of Vera Cruz 
come into sight, and the dusty train 
halts at a station almost within ear- 
shot of the booming surf of the 
gulf. 

This picturesque railroad was the 
first built in Mexico. Prior to its 
completion the traffic between the 
coast and the interior was carried 
on by means of pack trains over the 
highway constructed by the Spanish 
through Jalapa and Perote. It is 
a curious fact that the history of 
this old highway is better known- to 
us to-day than that of the railroad 
regarding which only a few names, 
a few dates, and a few dry details 
have been preserved. The most in- 
teresting portion of the story has 
never been written, and can be gath- 
ered only from the lips of the men, 
now few and scatterel, who shared in 
the work. For this task we lacked 



time and opportunity, but the fol- 
lowing " sketch embodies the few 
facts regarding the enterprise which 
have been preserved: 

The idea of the railroad is at- 
tributed to Don Francisco Arillaga, 
a wealthy merchant of Vera Cruz. 
He seems to have been in other res- 
pects an impracticable person, for as 
soon as the surveys revealed the dif- 
ficulties of the task he had under- 
taken, he became discouraged and 
surrendered to the government the 
franchises which he had obtained 
from it in 1837. The country was in 
a disturbed state for many years 
thereafter, and local capitalists, how- 
ever much they might have approved 
of the scheme theoretically, hesitat- 
ed to put their money into an enter- 
prise almost sure to result in fail- 
ure. For this reason, also, the con- 
struction of the road was eventually 
begun, not at the City of Mexico, the 
logical starting point, but at Vera 
Cruz. The Capital was altogether too 
turbulent in those days; hence the 
wisdom of concentrating the work as 
much as possible in a locality not 
likely to be disturbed by the mili- 
tary operations of rival aspirants for 
the presidency. 

Nobody in Mexican history aided 
more consistently in the promotion 
of the civil wars than Santa Anna, 
yet it was he who gave the Mexican 
Railroad its start. His interest man- 
ifested itself in rather an indirect, 
but nevertheless effective, manner. In 
1842, when he became Provisional 
President, he revived the' "averia" tax 
of 2 per cent over and above the 
regular duties on all merchandise 
passing through the Custom-house at 
Vera Cruz. It was agreed between 
him and the numerous creditors of 
the Government that the revenue 
thus obtained should be utilized 
partly to repair the Spanish highway 
and partly to construct a railroad 
between Vera Cruz and the San Juan 



44 



Seven Mexican Cities. 



River. The latter part of the con- 
tract was very carelessly carried 
out. By 1847, when the concession 
was annulled, only three miles of 
track had been laid. Tne Govern- 
ment did not acquire possession even 
of that till nearly four years later. 
In 1854 a tramway was constructed 
which carried the line to La Caleta, 
a short distance furtaer westward, 
Then the eminent Mexican engineer, 
Sanitago Mendez, took cnarge of the 
work, proposing- to lay at least a 
league of track a year, at a cost of 
$715,333 per annum. 

Before Mendez had much chance to 
carry out this enormously expensive 
contract, the Government seems to 
have realized its rashness and taken 
steps to frustrate his plans. In Aug- 
ust,. 1855, accordingly, President Santa 
Anna granted a franchise to two 
Mexicans named Mosso to build a 
railroad from the San Juan River 
clear across the Republic to Acapulco. 
They transferred the scene of activ- 
ity from the vicinity of Vera Cruz to 
Mexico City. When the line had 
been constructed as far as the sub- 
urb of Guadalupe, however, they sold 
their rights to Antonio Bscandon, the 
man who was to introduce order and 
system into the work, and thus make 
its eventual success possible. 

Bscandon seems to have been a 
■ very different type from those who 
up to that time had essayel the gi- 
gantic task of connecting the Capital 
and'the coast by rail. Prom the very 
first he had a clear notion of what 
he wanted to do, and a grim deter- 
mination to do it. The concession 
which he obtained from the Govern- 
ment on Aug. 31, 1857, called for a 
railroad from Vera Cruz to the Pa- 
cific. He does not seem to have giv- 
en more than passing attention to the 
possibility of carrying the line west- 
ward from the City of Mexico, but, 
having purchased from the Govern- 
ment the road already built between 
Vera Cruz and the San Juan, made 
that the starting point of his work. 
Escandon enlisted the services of 
a number of distinguished foreign en- 
gineers, chiefly Englishmen. They 
located and surveyed three routes be- 
tween the City of Mexico and Vera 
Cruz, one following fairly closely the 
old Spanish highway, one running 
through Jalapa, and one through Ori- 
zaba. It was an open question which 
of the three should be adopted. The 
Jalapa line presented fewer serious 
engineering problems, but the route 
by way of Orizaba ran through a 
richer country and promised to be 
commercially the most satisfactory in 
the long run. It was this considera- 
tion which ultimately caused the se- 
lection of the present line. Colonel 



Talcott, who made the survey, esti- 
mated the cost at $15,000,000. As a 
matter of fact the expenditures were 
in the neighborhood of $50,000,000. 
What the work cost in human life 
has never been figured out but scores 
of workmen perished in cutting the 
roadbed in the face of the tremendous 
precipices, say at Maltrata and the 
Infernillo, at Metlac and through the 
Encijaal Valley. 

Under the direction of an engineer 
named Lyons the road was quickly 
built as far as the Tejeria, about 
eight miles west of Vera Cruz. Then 
a revolution broke out, which com- 
pelled the temporary suspension of 
the construction work. The surveys 
were, however, continued beyond that 
point, as though civil war were in 
progress nowhere in the vicinity. Not 
only were the engineers exposed to 
danger from bandits and guerillas, 
but many died of exposure and hard- 
ships among the hills. Talcott com- 
pleted the plans in 1858. In 1861 the 
restoration of peace allowed the con- 
struction work to be resumed. In 
April of that year Escandon obtained 
from President Juarez a new conces- 
sion, which, while still laying stress 
upon the transcontinental nature of 
the enterprise, was important main- 
ly because it provided for the con- 
struction of the present branch line 
to Puebla. The Government also un- 
dertook to aid the enterprise finan- 
cially to the extent of $800,000. For 
this purpose a consolidated fund was 
created, chargeable on the public 
debt and bearing interest at 5 per 
cent, the principal to be paid in twen- 
ty-five years. Everything looked en- 
couraging, when the invasion of the 
Republic by the French and the es- 
tablishment of the second empire re- 
vived the horrors of the civil war. 
In 1864 the indefatigible Escandon, 
probably thinking that in the pre- 
vailing disorder he had little chance 
of carrying his enterprise further, 
sold his rights in the railroad to the 
Imperial Railway Company. This 
purchase was approved by Maximil- 
ian in the following January. 

A month later construction work 
was started at "Los Cumbres," the 
"summits," 'the highest point in the 
Cordilleras reached by the road. The 
concession had only five years to run 
and the contractors were just start- 
ing on what was obviously the most 
difficult section of the line. Con- 
siderable work had, however, been 
done elsewhere. When in June, 186T, 
the collapse of the empire restored 
the Republican Government to power, 
two divisions had been completed, 
that from Vera Cruz to Paso del 
Macho, a distance of forty-seven and 
one-half miles, and that from the 



Seven- Mexican Citii.:s. 



45 



City of Mexico to Apizaco, a distance 
of eig-hty-six and one-half miles. 
President Juarez promptly confirmed 
the concession granted by Maximilian 
and in 1868 the final stages of the 
work were entered upon under the 
direction of Buchanan, Foote, Murray, 
Cosio, Begares and other disting- 
uished foreign and native 'engineers. 
The superintendent of construction, 
Thomas Braniff, was an Englishman. 
Thanks to tlie energy of these men, 
the section from Paso del Macho to 
Atoyac was opened in 1870, and that 
Atoyac to Portin in the following 
December. In 1871 the successful 
construction of the viaduct, across 
the Metlac canyon eliminated one of 
the most serious obstacles with which 
the engineers had to contend. Trains 
crossed the bridge for the first time 
on Sept. 5, 1872. On Dec. 31, 1872, 
the road was pronounced complete 
from the City of Mexico to Vera Cruz. 
On the following day the line was 
inaugurated by President Juarez, 
whose wise patronage had done much 
to make this happy issue possible. 

To-day, even the preliminary stages 
of the journey from the capital to 
"Vera Cruz are full of interest. For 
nearly four hours after leaving the 
city we were in view the volcanoes 
, of Popocatapel and Iztacclhuatl, 
their lofty summits crested with im- 
mortal snows and shining like silver 
in the. sunshine. Though nearly 100 
miles away in a southerly direction, 
they are clearly defined above ele- 
.\-ations which rim the valley of 
Mexico, and present a most impres- 
sive and , inspiring appearance. 
The pyramid of San Juan Teotihau- 
can, erected long before the arrival of 
,the Spanish in Anahuac, is visible 
.from the train, and is also an object 
of great interest. The sensational 
.part of the journey, however begins 
at Esperanza, where, as I have said, 
the road attains an elevation of near- 
ly 8,000 feet. Although it was a bril- 
liant June morning, without a cloud 
in the sky, the cool, keen air of the 
mountains made us relish the shelter 
of the railroad carriage. At this 
point we crossed the boundary line 
between the States of Puebla and 
Vera Cruz, and began the descent 
from the table-land to the low-lying 
tropical region along the Gulf coast. 
Between Boca del Monte and Orizaba 
the scenery was of indescribable 
magmificent. Everywhere huge mass- 
es of basalt, granite and limestone 
rising in fantastic shapes, formed 
gTilches, mounds and pinnacles of un- 
cqualed grandeur. Presently, a beau- 
tiful view across the valley of La 
Joya revealed lovely gardens, heavily 
wooded slopes, and freshly-ploughed 
fields, where in the furrows the 
brown-skinned farmers were pa- 



tiently driving teams of oxen hitched 
to rude ploughs crudely shaped from 
tl>e fork of m tree. 

This attractive landscape, however, 
scarcely prepared us for the vast 
panorama of the Maltrata Valley, 
wheich opened unexpectedly before 
us as we emerged from a somewliat 
longer tunnel than usual. The sud- 
den transition from impenrtrable 
darkness to tlie blinding radiance of 
the daylight was sufficiently startling 
in itself. But our amazement can be 
imagined when we found ourselves, 
as it were, upon the clouds, the road- 
bed being here excavated in the face 
of a tremendous cliff, so that, while 
on the left the scarred face of the 
rock continues to rise heavenward, 
on the right it falls sheer away near- 
ly 2,000 feet. We were seated upon 
the right, and obtained the full effect 
of this unparalleled experience. The 
first emotion was too nearly like that 
of some involuntary aeronaut, who 
finds himself swept up into the 
clouds, and looks down with dis- 
may upon the pleasant earth, the 
familiar features of which seem rap- 
idly dwindling away beneath his feet. 

This somewhat disagreeable sen- 
sation promptly gave way to admira- 
tion for the genius of the men who 
had constructed the road at this dizzy 
height, and for the marvelous range 
and variety of the landscape. Below 
us, at the bottom of the almost per- 
pendicular precipice, along which 
the- track was built, lay the little 
town of Maltrata, its white houses 
and one slender little gray church 
spire twinkling bravely in the sun- 
shine. Ribbons of cactus crossed ;he 
valley in many directions, dividing it 
into fields. Here and there the glint 
of water showed where a little stream 
pursued its way. For fully half an 
hour we remained in sight of the tiny 
town, describing a huge irregular 
horseshoe along the hills above it, 
gradually descending on one side and 
then on another, the vegetation get- 
ting denser on the slopes as we pro- 
ceeded. The mingled rock and soil 
Were screened by lovely ferns and 
perfect conservatories of wild flow- 
ers. Here and there a large tree 
might be seen withering in the grasp 
of parasitic vines, wound like ropes 
around the trunk, and burgeoning 
securely among the branches. In a 
few years the victim will die, smoth- 
ered in the embrace of its lusty ene- 
my; but at that time the vine itself 
will have attained such proportions 
that it will replace the tree to all in- 
tents and purposes, continuing to 
support in its convolutions frag- 
ments of the rotten wood. Vast 
numbers of orchids flourished every- 



46 



Seven Mexican Cities. 



where, but they rarely bore a flower, 
and what color they contributed to 
the rich carpet of the hillside was 
supplied by the delicate gray, blue 
and pink, which mottled the spiney 
leaves. 

The train descends rapidly, rush- 
ing down under its own impetus, the 
powerful engines being- used to re- 
strain its momentum, instead of to 
accelerate it. The floor of the val- 
ley, which from high up on the moun- 
tains seemed a level expanse of green, 
proves to be a succession of low. hills 
thickly grown ■with grass. It is with 
something of surprise that we halt 
finally at a huge iron water tank to 
slake the thirst of -the engine, and 
to find that the toy village on which 
we lately looked down with curious 
amusement, has grown in the in- 
terval to a picturesque little city of 
several hundred inhabitants. At the 
station boys and girls offer tlie trav- 
eler fruit at ridiculously small prices, 
reckoned in American money. There 
is nothing noisy or pressing in their 
demeanor. They lift to your window 
the fragrant burden of pineapple, 
mamey, zapote or lemons, as the case 
may be, murmuring a word or two; 
welcoming a sale with a smile, ac- 
bepting an adverse decision with 
uncomplaining sadness. The stolid 
endurance which is tamped on these 
young faces is characteristic of the 
natives, not ofMaltrata only, but of 
all parts of the Republic. They seem 
dumbly conscious of the burden of 
history that weighs upon them, and 
appreciate instinctively the doom, that 
overshadows their future. The sheaves 
of flowers, a whole armful of which 
roses and orchids, can be bought for 
twenty cents, have singularly little 
perfume; it is as though the racial 
weariness and inefficiency had some- 
how infected the produce of their 
gardens as well. 

Between Boca del Monte and the 
station at Maltrata the train travels 
only ten or twelve miles, but the 
descent is nearly 2,000 feet. In the 
next six or seven miles, to the In- 
fernillo Viaduct, and the opening of 
the Encinal Valley, there is a fur- 
ther descent of about 1,000 feet. It 
is said that where the track is car- 
ried along the face of the mountains, 
the laborers wlio excavated the road- 
bed had to be lowered to their work 
every morning by ropes, and that 
they chipped the rock away bit by 
bit with hammer and chisel. One 
of the engineers has left On record 
the curious statement that 60,000 



pounds of gunpowder were consumed 
in blasting away a place for the 
piers of a single bridge. In running 
the levels for the Maltrata incline, 
the hills were crossed and recrossed 
thirty times before the engineers hit 
upon a practicable route. Even then, 
from the day the work began, till 
the last spike was driven home, 
thirteen years of unremitting effort 
elapsed. At many points places are 
pointed out in the swiftly-flowing 
Maltrata River where the men, of- 
ficers and subordinates alike, worked 
neck-deep in water. At the Metlac 
bridge they put in two years of heart- 
breaking labor. At first it was pro- 
posed to cross the canyon on a via- 
duct 800 feet above the river. This 
was so difficult and dangerous that 
the present bridge, built on a curve 
of 325 feet radius, at an elevation of 
90 feet, was substituted, although the 
change involved the construction of 
six tunnels, between two of which the 
bridge itself was finally suspended. 
Such were some of the difficulties, in 
the face of w^hich this wonderful rail- 
road was completed. 

Passing through the Sumidero Val- 
ley, famous for its underground riv- 
ers, and still winding in and out 
among lofty mountains, clad from 
base to summit with verdure, we 
reached Orizaba about 3 o'clock in 
the afternoon. This is one of the 
oldest and most picturesque of Mexi- 
can cities. A little stream, boiling 
and bubbling through the city and 
past the railroad station, furnishes 
power to several sugar, cotton and 
flour mills. The volcano of Orizaba 
is usually visible from this point, but 
unfortunately a heavy rain began to 
fall as we neared the city, and the 
vast bulk of this lofty mountain was 
completely hidden from view under 
a veil of clouds. The ascent of the 
volcano presents no serious difficul- 
ties to those accustomed to this form 
of exercise. It is said that the sum- 
mit was flrst reached by a party of 
Americans, who planted a flag there, 
the tattered remains of whicli were 
recovered in 1851, by an adventurous 
Frenchman. 

The city and its environs are of 
peculiar interest in modern Mexican 
history. To the west of the town the 
domelike hill of El Borrego, a mass 
of slate rising at an angle of 
seventy-five degrees, is alw^ays 
pointed out. There, some 5,000 Mexi- 
can troops were surprised and routed 
by a single company of Zuaves, dur- 
ingthe French invasion. The valor of 
the French troops has been much 
commented upon, but as a matter of 
fact, their success was due princi- 
pally to the fact that the Mexica* 
reserves, on coming into action, be- 



Seven Mexican Cities. 



47 



eame confused in the darkness of the 
nig-ht, and fired upon tlieir own com- 
rades.. The episode, however, was of 
considerable importance, inasmuch 
as it compelled the retreat of the Re- 
publican Army, and enabled the 
French to occupy the city. 

Orizaba was, in fact, for some 
time, the headquarters of Bazaine's 
army. It was here in 1866 that Max- 
imilian bade farewell to that officer 
and with him to the last hope of 
maintaining the imperial power of 
Mexico. Only a short distance after 
leaving- the city the railroad passes 
the village of Jalapilla, where Max- 
imilian established himself after the 
departure of the French, and where 
he held a historic conference with 
Jiis officers, to determine his future 
conduct. The Emperor wished to ab- 
dicate, but his judgment was over- 
ruled by friends, and he set forth 
from this little place on his last cam- 
paign, determined to conquer his re- 
bellious people. It was a gallant 
folly, worthy of a Hapsburg. The 
end of the Empire was soon at hand. 
It is customary to attribute the fall of 
Maximilian's tissue-paper government 
to the interposition of the United 
States, at whose demand Napoleon III 
was obliged to order Bazaine and the 
French Army to evacuate Mexico; but 
the result would have been the same 
if the United States had_never stirred 
in the matter. The empire was al- 
ready falUns to pieces, and the tri- 
umph of Juarez could have been at 
best postponed only a few months 
longer. 

Beyond Orizaba, the route lies for 
much of the way through groves of 
bananas and cocoanut, and planta- 
tions of sugar and corn. The falls of 
Atoyac are practically the last im- 
portant bit of scenery which the 
traveler needs to watch for. At 
Cameron the lush vegetation of the 
tropics is in full possession, and be- 
yond that to Vera Cruz, through the 
shadows of the swiftly-coming night, 
the monotony of the landscape is 
broken only by the tall shapes of 
the ceiba and mahogany trees. 

Several days might, be spent profi- 
tably in Vera Cruz; but we could 
give it only a few hours. The ■ city 
has had a long and interesting his- 
' tory. Founded by Cortez in 1519, it 
was practically destroyed by pirates 
in 1583. In 1823 the Spanish Gover- 
nor, driven from the mainland took 
refuge in the Fortress of San Juan 
de Ulua, the guns of which were then 
turned upon the town. In 1838 a 
French fleet charged with the col- 
lection of a debt due to one of King 
Louis Phillippe's subjects, bombarded 
and almost annihilated the place. The 
Americans in 1846 used their arti- 



lery effectively upon the city for five 
days. Add to these disasters the 
minor ones inflicted by bucaneers, 
patriots and military chieftains of all 
sorts, and it is a wonder that the 
city is as prosperous and energetic 
as it actually it to-day. The people 
seem deeply interested in the future 
of the port. Tlie Government is going, 
to pave the streets at an early date. 
The electrification of the street car 
line is spoken of, and other eviden- 
ces of enterprise are visible on all 
sides. 

Nothing justifies the hopeful spir- 
it of the commAnity more than tha 
extensive harbor Improvements, 
which are now approaching comple- 
tion. What this gigantic enterprise 
means to Vera Cruz can readily be 
imagined. Nearly twenty-five years 
have elapsed since the project was 
originally bruited. Tlie first con- 
tract was made with a French firm. 
They failed to do anything and the 
concession was withdrawn in 188G. 
Another contractor made an equally 
inglorious record. Finally the work 
was entrusted to Sir Wheetman Pear- 
son, of London. The company of 
which this distinguished engineer is 
the head began operations in 1895, 
and is still at work. A sea wall of 
concrete and granite has been built 
from a point north of the city to the 
Gallega Reef, on which stands the 
Castle of San Juan de Ulua. Beyond 
this point the wall is continued in a 
southwesterly direction to the mouth 
of the harbor, which is about 800 feet 
wide. Another breakwater terminat- 
ing in a handsome lighthouse pro- 
tects the southern side of the harbor. 
The area thus inclosed measures 
nearly 550 acres, and is dredged to a 
uniform depth of nine meters, or 
about thirty feet. Three large stone 
docks have been erected, and a num- 
ber of smaller ones, each capable of 
accommodating several steamships at 
once. Much rem-ains to be done to 
equip the docks with machinery and 
appliances. In their present state, 
however, they are superior to any- 
thing of the kind at all but the 
very largest ports in the United 
States. 

In connection with these works a 
sea wall was solidly built parallel 
with the town, and three or four 
hundred feet from the shore. The 
area thus inclosed, some ninety acres 
in extent, has been filled in with sand 
excavated from the harbor, with a 
topping of earth brought by rail 
from a point twenty kilometers in- 
land. Here the most desirable sec- 
tion of the citv will eventually be lo- 
cated. At present it is rather an 
unsightly expanse of grassy ground, 
full of ruts and furrows. The mag- 



48 



Seven Mexican Cities. 



nificent postofflce building, a marble 
structure of classical architecture, 
adorned with busts of famous me-n, 
stands at one end. Other govern- 
ment structures will be erected in 
the same locality. The harbor works 
are very costly and complicated, and 
naturally they are proceeding slowly 
When finished they will represent an 
expenditure of more than $50,000,000. 
and will make Vera Cruz the safest 
port in the world and probably one of 
the handsomest. 

Vera Cruz in common with other 
Mexican seaports, has benefited from 
the Government's interest in sanitary 
matters. The National Congress an- 
nually appropriates large sums to 
be spent in promoting the health of 
these places. Vera Cruz receives a 
considerable portion of this money, 
and is spending it wisely. Dr. Frick, 
the United States Marine Hospital 
Surgeon, now stationed here, in dis- 
cussing the nature of the improve- 
ments, has drawn a useful distinction 
between "temporary" and "perma- 
nent work." In respect to the latter 
category, he says, the city represents 
an improvement over former times 
of from sixty-five to seventy-five per 
cent. This is a creditable showing. 
Many of the enterprises which are 
relied on to increase the healthful- 
ness of the city are not yet complete. 
When they are finished, the percent- 
age will naturally be higher. 

The two most important of these 
works are the sewerage and the wa- 
ter systems. In spite of some de- 
fects the latter has been instrumental 
in greatly bettering the local health 
conditions. The principal criticism 
which the system invites the man- 
ner of making connections with the 
houses. Any person is permitted to 
perform this work. The result is not 
always as satisfactory as might be 
desired, from the hygienic point of 
view. This, of course, is a matter 
which is bound to correct itself. A 
demand for better plumbers is al- 
ways springing up, and must be filled 
at an early date. 

The water supply is drawn from 
the Jamapa River, at Tejeria, about 
eight miles from Vera Cruz. The 
quality is excellent. The local med- 
ical authorities say that since it was 
made available, typhoid fever has 
practically disappeared from the city. 
The system, is new and will work 
more smoothly in a little while than 
it does now. The people, especially 
the lower classes, are very wasteful 
in the use of water. Conseauently, 
in order that every part of the city 
shall have its quota, it is necessary 
to cut off one quarter after the other 
for a short time during each day. 
Tanks and cisterns, barrels and other 



reservoirs are necessary in "which to 
store water against the times when 
the municipal service is interrupted. 
The law requires that all such recep- 
tacles should be screened. This stat- 
ute is being more and more strictly 
enforced as time passes. Any laxity 
just now is offset by the fact that 
Dr. Frick had failed to find that the 
stegomyia mosquito breeds in them. 
So long as this dangerous little in- 
sect is absent, the yellow fever ex- 
perts will not be too exacting with 
the Vera Cruz authorities. 

Dr. Frick has given considerable 
attention to the breeding places of 
the stegomyia in Vera Cruz. He has 
failed to find them in pools formed 
by rain. The hot sun soon evaporates 
any such accumulations of vi^ater. 
The rains flush the gutters copiously 
and prevent the propagation of the 
mosquito there also. The weather, 
moreover, has been for the last two 
or three years uniformly unfavorable 
to the development of mosquitoes. 
Dr. Frick believes that the stego- 
myia has practically disappeared 
from the coast. He entertains the 
interesting theory that it cannot sur- 
vive a temperature in excess of 102 
degrees. Vera Cruz is seldom that 
w^arm in the shade, but in the sun- 
shine the thermometer doubtless of- 
ten registered a heat even more in- 
tense. The fact that there has been 
practically no yellow fever now for 
two years is most encouraging. Ex- 
perience shows that the population is 
to be relied on to report any fever 
that may develop. 

The adoption of the mcsquito the- 
ory of the origin of yellow fever 
has done much to invalidate quaran- 
tines. There is a splendidly organ- 
ized and equipprd quarantine station 
in Vera Cruz, maintained by the Gov- 
ernment now to prevent the introduc- 
tion of other contagious diseases, like 
cholera or the plague. The Mexican 
quarantine deals with yelliw fever 
almost, if not entirely, by means of 
fumigation. Passengers are not de- 
tained' unless they are already ill. 
Vera Cruz no longer considers itself 
a breeding spot for the fever. It 
apprehends danger principally from 
Havana and Panama. With Panama 
there is at present no direct inter- 
course. It is interesting to note that 
the local surgeons believe that rough 
weather at sea tends to develop the 
disease, if the germ is latent in the 
body of one of the passensrers. Thir- 
ty-six hours of storm suffices as a 
rule to bring on the characteristic 
symptoms. If nothing happens at the 
end of that time ship masters heave 
a sigh of relief, and are easy in their 
minds; there is no yellow fever on 
board. In calm weather, however, 



Seven Mexican Cities. 



49 



the disease does not manifest itself 
so promptly. 

The death rate in Vera Cruz will 
be lower when the present public 
works are finished. The Govern- 
ment's statistics are reliable as far 
as the mortality is concerned. Im- 
proper diet undoubtedly does much 
to lower the power of resistance to 
disease among- the poorer classes of 
the population. For this reason the 
death rate is especially high among 
infants and children. They contribute 
upwards of ten per cent of the entire 
mortality. Among- adults the vic- 
tims of tuberculosis are most nume- 
rous. A pernicious form of malaria 
known in the United States as the 



Chagres fever, and tetanus also oc- 
casion many deaths. I'Jxcluding these 
diseases and those of the alimentary 
tract, the death rate is really small. 
The paving of the city, and the fill- 
ing in of the harbor front, will do 
much to rid the town of malaria. The 
other diseases arc largely hereditary, 
and tend to exterminate tliemselves. 
Considering the beneficial result so 
far resulting from the sanitary en- 
terprises in exploration in Vera Cruz, 
there is every reason to expect a 
very marked improvement in the fu- 
ture. We may soon see a day when 
the city will be classed as a model 
in matters of health as well as of 
commerce. 



C:^HART"EF=R VII 



The Tehauntepec Railroad to Be Opened for Business Next Octo- 
ber — Extension of the Mexican Central from Tuxpan to 
Colima and Manzanillo — What It Means to New Orleans- 
Opportunities to Open Up Important Fields as Yet Unreached 
by American Enterprise — Scenic Beauties of the Tuxpan-Co- 
lima Route — Curious History of the Tehauntepec Franchise 
— Great Harbors Constructed at Coatzacoalcos and Salina 
Cruz — Advantages of Tehauntepec Over Panama as a Route 
for the Commerce of the World. 



■^m^ L.SE WHERE in this series of 
I J letters I have had occasion 
Ij («) to speak of the energy which 
^ the Mexican Government is 

^^^ showing in developing the 
"^^^ commercial possibilities of 
\(S) its ports. In addition to the 
important enterprises which 
it has underway at these places, it is 
aiding- in many ways in the construc- 
tion of two important transconti- 
nental railroads, the completion of 
either of which will be of profound 
significance to the city of New Or- 
leans. The Tehauntepec Railroad is 
finished between Coatzacoalcos, on 
the Gulf of Mexico, and Salina Criz, 
on the Pacific, but as a factor in 
the world's commerce its value will 
not be felt until the harbor works 
at these terminals have been com- 
pleted, which will be some time in 
October. The extension of the Mexi- 
can Central Railroad, westward from 
Guadalajara, will not be opened for 
business for fully eighteen months 
yet. The route, which traverses some 
of the most picturesque portions of 
the Republic, will ultimately con- 
nect with the existing railroad at 
Colima, by means of which it will 
have access to Manzanillo, on the 
Pacific coast. Extensive improve- 
ments are being made at Manzanillo, 
which, when done, will make that 
harbor, naturally one of the safest 
and most commodious on the western 
littorah thoroughly modern in every 
respect. 



Little has been published about the 
extension of the Mexican Central 
Railroad southward from Tuxpan to 
Colima. The country through which 



the line is being run is one of the 
most densely inhabited in Mexico. 
The" scenery is of the grandest 
character. To the average Ameri- 
can this region is less known 
than Northern Africa. Tlie quick- 
est time in which it can now 
be reached from New Orleans is two 
weeks. The mineral resources of 
the Pacific Coast are of extraordi- 
nary richness and variety. There are 
mines of fabulous value around 
Mazatlan and Culiacan, Tepic and 
San Bias. The State of Colima is 
celebrated for the excellence of its 
coffee, of which great quantities are 
exported annually in sailing vessels 
to Europe. At present nine-tentlis of 
the products of this extensive lit- 
toral find their way to £an Fran- 
cisco. The new railroad, when com- 
pleted, will, however, bring New Or- 
leans within six days of Manzanillo, 
and it is reasonable to expect that a 
very considerable portion of tills 
lucrative trade will find its way by 
the new route to this city. 

The most difficult section of the 
new road is now being constructed 
between Tuxpan and Colima, a dis-* 
tance of about forty miles. The route 
lies through the Sierras, v^rhich liere 
attain very respectable dimensions. 
Some tremendous ravines are crossed. 
Over the Santa Rosa barranca a 
steel bridge will be thrown at a 
height of 282 feet. Another great can- 
yon, called after his Satanic Majesty, 
is 600 feet deep and 2,000 feet wide. 
T..e quality of the engineering in- 
volved may be estimated from the 
fact that one single kilometer — a 
trifle more than half a mile — -will 
cost $200,000 to build. Several 
others will represent an expenditure 



Seven Mexican Cities. 



51 



of $100,000 each. The total cost of 
the roald will be flO, 000,000, silver 
equivalent to $5,000,000 in American 
currency. Of about $50,000 per mile. 
Inasmuch as sixty miles of the dis- 
tance to the Pacific is covered by the 
narroiw-gauge road already in exis« 
tence between Colima and Manzanillo, 
the outlay necessary to broaden the 
track, reduce the grades and correct 
the curves on this section of the 
route will be comparatively small. 
The bulk of the expenditure will be 
on the line between Tuxpan and 
Colima. 

Tuxpan is a little town with . a 
population in which the Indian ele- 
ment larg-ely predominates. Thence 
to Colima, the route winds among 
the spurs of the Sierras leading up 
to the great Volcano of Colima, the 
only one in North America now ac- 
tive. An excellent view of this mag- 
nificent cone, 14,343 feet high, will 
be afforded from the train. All the 
year found clouds of steam issue 
from the summit of the mbuntain, 
but it is so fenced around by lesser 
elevations that, even in the times 
of its gfeatiest activity, the overflow 
of lava and hot mud cannot do much 
harm. Froni' its sides, too, come the 
streams of thie great barrancas, fed 
by the: continually condensed steam 
from the vdlcanb. These streams cut 
the Country into great gulches 
radiating from the volcano, and for 
a portion of thci line, the road fol- 
lows the opposite side of the Tuxpan 
River to avoid these barrancas, or 
canons. The river bed itself pro- 
vides the finest scenery to be found 
anywhere. Motintaih walls of stone 
are perhaps grandeif, but the magni- 
ficence of the view here is un- 
equaled in its kind. Above the river, . 
in places 1,000 above it, rise sheer 
precipices, sometimes graded off by 
the tumbling of the crunibling soil 
of the region, made up of boulders 
and volcanic mud from the volcano, 
and in others by limestone and even 
granite ground and broken to cob- 
blestones by the great cataclysms of 
the past. Above this river w^all, be- 
low which the Tuxpan tumbles over 
its rocky bottom, comes a flat table- 
land, in some places marked by a 
surprisingly rich soil, very exten- 
sively cultivated in corn and rice. 
Still above this tableland, however, 
is the great mesa, where the soil is 
rich and soft, where great sugar 
haciendas reap yearly their thousands 
of acres, and w^here rice and corn 
are raised in abundance, and whp'-r^ 
cattle breed in rich pastures. Low 
ranges of hills line the mesa, above 
which finally rises the admirably 
proportioned cone of the volcano, 
with its attendant wreaths of storm- 
clouds, and the thin vapor from hid- 



den fires cui-ling languidly heaven- 
ward. The last considerable eruption 
took place in 1903, but it is really 
twenty years since there has been 
any dangerous manifestation of the 
titantic forces asleep in the heart of 
the giant. This noble peak Is fasci- 
nating, even wlien it is veiled from 
base to crest in a mantle of clouds, 
and is practically lost to view. Thu 
mere fact that it is there, even when 
invisible, exercises a potent influ- 
ence over the imagination. 

In other respects, too, the scenery 
on the line of the road as it ap- 
proaches the city of Colima, may 
well be ranked among the finest in 
Mexico. AVaterfalls precipitate them- 
selves from the tableland to the river 
below. The hilltops are graced with 
pine trees. Great gaps in the moun- 
tains permit vistas of still more dis- 
tant hills. The luxuriant vegetation 
of the tropics adorns the slopes with 
a mantle of close-woven foliage. The 
city of Colima is well built, with a 
romantic history and many beauti- 
ful churches. The climate is superb. 
The days are warm, but not exces- 
sively so, and the nights are in- 
variably cool and delightful. Its 
trade with the interior has always 
been considerable. Hundreds of 
pack-mules daily traverse tlie trail 
from Zapotlan, laden with produce, 
goods and ore. The freight rates over 
this primitive route are very high, 
averaging from $25 to $50, silver, per 
ton. These figures will, of course, 
be materially reduced w^hen the rail- 
road is opened. Colima also does 
much business with the outside 
world, over the Mexican Pacific Rail- 
road and through the port of Man- 
zanillo, the objective towards which 
the new railroad is directed. Man- 
zanillo is the most centrally located 
of all the many ports on the Pacific. 
Pacific mail steamers, all coasters on 
the Pacific, and acrosS-the-ocean 
traffic also, can touch tliese with- 
out retracing their path up the 
Gulf of California. Acapulco, San 
Bias, Mazatlan and Guaymas can be 
reached by the vessels which even 
now ply the Mexican west coast, 
opening up the wonderfully rich 
west- coast country. It will bring 
the ports of lower California within 
two days of the City- of Mexico, and 
in return for tlie vast products of 
these sections, present and prospec- 
tive, in mining, grazing and agricul- 
tural industries, the line will also 
open to this west coast the advan- 
tages of direct communication with 
the capital, and give a new and vir- 
gin field for the exploitation of the 
products of the fast-growing manu- 
factories of Guadalajara, one of the 
principal cities of Mexico, as well as 



52 



Seven Mexican Cities. 



to many other manufacturing- center.s 
all over the Republic. 

The port of Manzanillo, while com- 
paratively small, has been developed 
partially by the Government, at a 
cost of aijout $7,000,000, Mexican 
currency, up to the present time, and 
more money will be spent on walling- 
tlie water line and dredg-ing, most 
of tlie present appropriation having 
been spent on a breakwater protect- 
ang- tlie entrance to the inner harbor. 
But the present developments at 
Manzanillo are inadequate to the 
needs of the port, as they are antici- 
pated by those, interested in the pro- 
ject. It is a matter of note, how- 
ever, that Manzanillo, unlike most of 
tlie Pacific ports, has within its 
Teach one of tlie finest possibilities 
for liarbor development to be met 
w^ith anywhere. Back of the range 
of hills which edges the harVior at 
this point is a great stagnant lake, 
nearly ten miles long, into which an 
entrance from the harbor could be 
cut at small expense, and which could 
l)e dredged over its full surface to 
any depth required, and a vast har- 
bor, capable of taking care of the 
shipping of nations, made here for 
the accommodation of the commerce, 
which is confidently expected to come 
to this, the tidewater terminus of 
the first of the many projected west 
coast lines from the capital of the 
Republic. Linking at the City of 
Mexico with the Mexican Railway 
it will complete the interoceanic 
route from Vera Cruz dreamed of for 
so many years, by so many statesmen 
and engineers. 

A moment's inspection of the map 
will convince anyone that, in several 
important respects, nature has done 
at Tehauntepec almost as much as 
at Panama, to facilitate communica- 
tion between the Eastern and West- 
ern oceans. At this point the conti- 
nent shrinks to a narrow neck of 
land only 125 miles wide, while the 
Sierra Madre Mountains here de- 
cline to a range of hills only a few 
hundred feet in height. From the 
earliest times it has been looked on 
as a possible route of an inter- 
oceanic road. As far back as 1520, 
when Cortez was the guest of Monte- 
zuma in Tenochtitlan, the Indiiiii 
monarch called his attention to the 
subject. He showed him a map and 
suggested the expedition which the 
Conqueror subsequently dispatched to 
Tehauntepec. The party sailed up 
tlie Coatzacoalcos River, hoping 
tliat it would prove a waterway run- 
ning clear across to the Pacific — an 
idea which, it is needless to remark, 
was disappointed. Cortez never for- 
g-ot the possibilities of the Tehaunte- 
pec route. In his fourth letter to 
tOharles V, he dwells upon it at con- 



siderable length. He was so sure 
that eventually the exigencies of 
trade would compel the opening of a 
route across the Isthmus, that he 
obtained from the crown a grant of 
four estates along the line which he 
judged would be adopted. These lands 
were held by his descendants down 
to within comparatively recent years. 
Ho-vv w^ise the Conqueror was may be 
inferred from the fact that the rail- 
road runs for a part of the way 
right through his plaiitations. 

Since the time of Cortez, repeated 
attempts have been made to utilize 
in one way or the other the oppor- 
tunities which Tehauntepec offers so 
prodigally. Though the policy of 
Spain was not in general favorable 
to the development of trade in her 
colonies, surveys for an inter- 
oceanic road across the isthmus were 
continued under the viceroys. The 
accuracy of the charts compiled 
under the reigns of Philip II and 
Cliarles III, have often been com- 
mented on by subsequent genera- 
tions of engineers. Austin Cramer, 
the agent sent by the Viceroy Buca- 
reli, in 1774, was the first man to 
advocate the construction of a canal 
across the Isthmus. In 1824, shortly 
after the establishment of indepen- 
dence in Mexico, the Federal Govern- 
ment and the State of Vera Cruz each 
dispatched a commission to survey 
the Isthmus. It was tlirough their 
efforts that the city of Minatitlan 
was founded. They also devised a 
project for improving the navigation 
at the Coatzacoalcos up to its junc- 
tion with the Malatengo, and for a 
carriage road from that point to the 
Pacific. 

In 1842 Santa Anna granted a con- 
cession for a land and water route 
across the Isthmus to Jose de Garay. 
Some five or six years later the fran- 
chise was acquired by an English 
firm domiciled in Mexico, which, in 
turn, disposed of it to Peter Hargous, 
of New York. Hargous made several 
attempts to realize the project, but 
found it impossible to do so, in view 
of the hostility then felt in Mexico 
towards the Americans because of 
the war just recently ended. His con- 
cession was annulled in 1851, and a 
new one of similar import was is- 
sued to A. D. Sloo & Co. The Sloo 
Company proved equally incapable. 
In September, 1S57. the Mexican 
Government contracted with th--> 
I>ouisiana Tehauntepec Company, of 
New Orleans, for a rail and river 
road across Tehauntepec. A higli- 
way was actually built between 
Suchil and Ventosa, and for a time 
a prosperous business was done. 
Hundreds of pilgrims bound for the 
gold fields of California made the 
journey by sea from New Orleans to 



Seven Mexican Cities. 



Minatitlan, thence by boat up the 
Coatzacoalcos to Suchil, completing 
the journey on the steamers that 
plied between Ventosa and San Fran- 
cisco. In 1866, however. President 
Juarez annulled the franchise on the 
ground that the Company liad £aile>l 
to fulfill its obligations — presumably, 
in not having built the railroad speci- 
fied in the contract. 

Emile La Sere, a New Orleans man, 
who had been prominently connected 
with the Louisiana Tehauntepec 
Company, obtained the concession in 
1867, but after having beeri several 
times renewed and modified, this was 
also annulled, in 1879. The next 
concessionaire was Edward Learned. 
of New York, who transferred his 
rights to a company by whom some 
fifteen or sixteen miles of railroad 
were actually constructed. The con- 
cession was annulled in 1882 on terms 
w^hich must have been very satis- 
factory to the company, inasmuch 
as the Government agreed to pay, 
in all, $1,625,000 for such improve- 
ments as had been made. Perhaps 
the mere fact that a start had thus 
at last been made in the building 
of the railroad was worth all of that 
very considerable sum. 

At this point it is necessary to 
mention the Eads Ship Railway, 
which was to transport vessels bodily 
across the Isthmus. Eads, whose fame 
was won at the Mississippi River Jet- 
ties, firmly believed in the feasibility 
of this gigantic project. At each end 
of the. road as he planned it, there 
w^as to be a terminal dock, with a 
pontoon capable of lifting the largest 
ships then afloat. A vessel could by 
this means be raised to any desired 
level, placed upon a specially con- 
structed car, and transpo-rted, freight, 
passengers and all, just as she stood, 
across the Isthmus. Then, by means 
of a similar pontoon, she would be 
safely placed back in the water. Eads 
interested a number of people, and 
secured several concessions from the 
Mexican Government, the first being 
granted in 1881. Nothing was done, 
how^ever, to carry out the great engi- 
neer's plans, probably because at the 
time public attention was diverted 
to the Nicaragua Canal. 

In the meantime the Mexican 
Government seems to have gone on 
trying to find a competent contrac- 
tor who would really try to carry out 
his obligations regarding the build- 
ing of a railroad across the Isthmus. 
Its first contract, with Delfin San- 
chez, made in 1882, was rescinded in 
1888. Sanchez, however, built part 
of the road and did some other 
w^ork of importance, altogether ex- 
pending $562,910 on the enterprise. 
When the next concessionaire, Ed- 
ward 21cMurdo, of Londoji, took 



charge, he found 108 kilometers — a 
little more th&n sixty miles — of roa'l, 
more-or less l>adly built and in groat 
need of repair. MoMurdo undertook 
to complete the road withtn thirty 
months. He had /at his disposal the 
proceeds of a loan of £2,700.000, 
floated in Europe, bearing 5 per cent 
interest, and secured by a mortgage 
on the railway property. Unfortu- 
nately, he died before he could carry 
out his plans. The contract was re- 
scinded in 1892. Within a month 
another contract was made witli 
Messrs. Corthell, Hampson and Stan- 
hope, under whom the work %vas car- 
ried on energetically. But the pro- 
ceeds of the European loan pro\-ed 
inadequate, and by mutual agreement 
this contract, like so many of its 
predecessors, was canceled, Stanhope, 
hovirever, retained his confidence in 
the enterprise, and in December, 1893, 
secured a concession from the 
Government for the construction of 
the fifty-nine -kilometers, which re- 
mained to be built in order to com- 
plete the road. In the meantime, 
another loan of £3,000,000 had been 
raised. Stanhope's price for the 
work was $1,113,035. By the year 
1896 the work was finished, and the 
railroad across the Isthmus of Te- 
hauntepec was an accomplished fact. 

As it stood in 1896, however, the 
Thehauntepec Railroad was only ol 
local importance. It could not com- 
pete for the commerce of the world 
with the fleets that sailed around 
Cape Horn, or with the transconti- 
nental railroads of the United States. 
That it should do so, nevertheless, 
was the intention of Mexico's wise 
and progressive ruler. President Diaz 
saw that in order to crystallize his 
dream it would be necessary to build 
two great harbors, those of Coatza- 
coalcos and Salina Cruz, the com- 
pletion of which next month will mean 
so much to New Orleans. In 1S9S and 
1899 the Government accordingly 
negotiated a cnntfact with the British 
firm of S. Pearson & Sons, Ltd., 
, of London, to run fifty-one years, by 
which it virtually went into partner- 
ship in the management of the rail- 
road and the construction of the 
projected harbors. This concession 
was revised and approved in 1902, 
and with some modifications made 
two years later, is still in force. 

The work has been done every- 
where with characteristic British 
thoroughness. As the crow flies, the 
distance from ocean to ocean across 
the Isthmus of Tehauntepec is 125 
miles, but the sinuosities of the track 
are such that the railroad is 190 miles 
in length. It rises quite gradually 
from Coatzacoalcos on the Gulf Coas^ 
to the Chivela pass, the highest point 
on the divide, about 730 feet above 



54 



Sevkn Mexican Cities. 



«ea-level. The scenery is attrac- 
tive, but the hills and vallies which 
-contribute to the traveler's g-ratifi- 
cation have necessitated much heavy 
constructural work. In the Mala- 
tengo canyon, for instance, for a dis- 
tance of about eight miles, and in 
the Chivela pass, for about eighteen 
miles, the engineering problems wero 
■of a high order. At Chivela the con- 
struction of two horseshoe curves- 
and one tunnel was necessary. After 
leaving Chivela the descent is more 
or less abrupt, the grade being' in 
places as much as 160 feet to the 
mile. The main line is supplemented 
by a branch about fifteen miles Ions', 
connecting- Juile and San Juan 
Evangelista. At Lucrezia, connection 
IS made with the Vera Cruz and 
Pacific Railroad, over the line of 
which trains ffire now operated to 
"Vera Cruz and Cordova, thus g-iving 
iininterrupted access to all parts of 
the Republic. 

The equipment of the Tehauntepec 
road is of the most modern descrip- 
tion. The gauge is the standard one 
of four feet eight and one-half 
Inches. Oil. imported from Beau- 
mont, Tex., is used in lieu of other 
fuel. Steps are now being taken 
to rectify the five most important 
curves, and in time the heavier 
grades will be reduced. Eventually, 
it is expected to double-track all 
the line. The bridges, which are of 
steel with abutments of solid 
masonry, are numerous and, as in the 
instance of that over the Jaltepec 
River at Santa Lucrezia, of consider- 
able size. The Jaltepec bridge is 560 
feet long and consists of five spans. 
The road has been relaid throughout 
its length with eisrhtv-pmind rails. 
The ties are of crpns'-'ted pine, native 
Tiardwood. and California redwood. 
One of the many curious problems 
which had to be solved was presented 
by the luxuriant vegetation which 
thrives all along the route, and 
which, left to itself, would soon over- 
run the track and stop transporta- 
tion. The company uses an ingenious 
device for sprinkling the roadbed 
with chemicals, which destroy even 
the roots of the plants. But manual 
labor has also to be employed in tlie 
unending contest, the maintenance of 
"Which cuts quite a large figure in 
the annual -budget of the road. 

Af Coatzacoalcos the river forms 
a natural harbor of almost unlimited 
-capacity, with an average depth of 
fifty feet. Tlie cliannel was originally 
■obstructed by a bar over which 
there was, as a general rule, only 
twelve feet of water. The prob- 
lem, therefore, which the engineers 
*in charge of the portworks had to 
^olve was merely to remove the bar 
sind prevent it from forming anew. 



The system employed so successfully 
at the mouth of the Mississippi River, 
and tested anew with equally satis- 
factory results at Tampico, was. put 
in practice here. Two converging 
jetties extend from the mouth of the 
river into the sea, so as to confine 
the current wfithin as narrow limits 
as possible, compelling it to scour 
out the channel across the. bar. Wheu 
finished, the jetties will be 1,300 
meters, or oyer 4,000 feet long. They 
are being built of rubble dumped into 
the sea, and finished with a concrete 
dressing at the top. At present the 
west jetty is about three-quarters 
done, and work has been started on 
the east jetty. The rock for the lat- 
ter is carried across the river oh a 
barge operated by an . endless chain. 
Ultimately, it is expected that there 
will be a depth of water on the bar 
of over thirty feet. 

In the meantime the construction 
of three handsome steel wharves has 
been accomplished, and two more are 
under way. These are to be supple- 
mented by six large iron warehouses, 
eacli measuring 126 meters long, by 
thirty-three wide, two of which are 
done and one has been begun. The 
w^harves are equipped with electric 
cranes. A railroad yard five or six 
hundred feet wide lies back of the 
warehouses, on a considerable ex- 
panse of made land, the area of which 
is shortly to be tripled. 

At Salina Cruz, on the Pacific, the 
engineering problems which had to 
be solved were of a much higher 
order than at Coatzacoalcos. Here 
there had existed only an open road- 
stead. A harbor had literally to be 
made out of hand. In other words, 
human effort has had to do every- 
thing, without any assistance •what- 
ever from nature. Salina Cruz lacked 
even the subsidiary aids found at 
Vera Cruz for the creation of a safe 
and commodious haven for shipping. 
In winter time it was exposed to 
severe northers. In the summer time 
the prevailing winds caused a heavy 
and sometimes dangerous surf. But 
by building enormous breakw^aters 
of rubble, concrete and hewn stone, 
extending seaward from a rocky 
promontory, an outer and an inner 
harbor, admirable for the purpose, 
have been made. The breakwaters 
of the outer harbor are being reared 
in water between forty-five and fifty 
feet deep, and will inclose an area of 
about twenty acres, ample to accom- 
modate the sliipping of a hemi- 
spliere. The real harbor, how- 
ever, is an inner basin excavated 
upon the site of the old tow^n of 
Salina Cruz. Two immense dredgers 
are at work here. The basin, when 
finished, will be over 3,000 feet long. 



Seven Mexican Cities. 



by upwards of 700 feet wide, and 
at low water there will be a deptli 
of thirty feet on the sills. The sides 
will be faced with concrete monoliths, 
on top of which a rubble foundation 
will support a heavy course of 
cement, backed with sand. Near the 
•entrance to this capacious basin 
three warehouses will be erected, and 
tracks will be laid on the wliarves 
so that, with the aid of electric 
cranes, freight may be handled with 
the utmost expedition. Eventually, 
this basin will be widened nearly 
one-half; ten piers will be built 
along- the land side, and a number 
of othei' improvements will be added. 

At the northwest corner of the ba- 
sin a dry dock is being excavated, 
•capable of accommodating vessels 300 
feet long. 

Within the next two months, as I 
have said, Salina Cruz and Coatza- 
coalcos will be ready to handle ship- 
ping. The Mexican Government, it 
is understood, will establish its own 
steamship lines between Coatzacoal- 
cos and New Orleans, and between 
Salina Cruz and San Francisco. Al- 
ready a Japanese steamship company 
is arranging to run vessels regularly 
to Salina Cruz, thus bringing that 
port directly in touch with the Orient. 
Aside from the saving of time, in 
wliich respect Tehauntepec will rep- 



resent a gain of five days over Pan- 
ama, the great advantage which it 
offers New Orleans as a transcon- 
tinental route, is an actual economy 
of money. Freight can be trans- 
ported from shiphold to shiphold 
across the Isthmus at $2 per ton. 
In this connection the significant 
words of John F. Wallace, late Chief 
Engineer of tlie Panama Canal, may 
be quoted, with which this imperfect 
account of a great engineering enter- 
prise may be concluded: 

"It is estimated," says Mr. Wal- 
lace, "that modern steamers can 
carry ocean freight woth profit at 
the rate of $1 a ton per 1,000 miles. 
On this basis, from New York to 
Sydney, Australia, the saving in dis- 
tance by tl^e Mexican route would be 
5,700 miles, and any rate across the 
neck less that $5.75 per ton should 
take this business from the Suez Ca- 
nal. This does not count the time 
required to steam 5,700 miles — from 
which, of course, should be substract- 
ed the time consumed in transferring 
the freight by rail across the isth- 
mus. From New Orleans to Hong 
Kong the saving over Suez would 
be 4,800 miles and fourteen days in 
time; and from New Orleans to Yok- 
ohoma the saving, similarly reck- 
oned, would be 8,400 miles and twen- 
ty-four days." 



CDHAF=>TER VIII. 



The Capital of Yucatan, Center of the Sisal Industry— Growing: 
and Selling- the Fiber Used in Rope Has Made Merida 
the Richest City in Mexico — The Descendants of the Mayas 
— ^Strict Sanitary Laws Rigidly Enforced in the Cities of 
Yucatan — Opportunities for the Merchants of New Orleans^ 



••^HE growtTi of the sisal busi- 
\ J ness in the last eight or ten 

\ / years h?B made Yucatan one 
© ® of the most prosperous sec- 
tions of Mexico. Prior to that 
time, the Philippines prac- 

j ^ tically monopolized the trade. 
The hemp industry, however, 
was disorganized during the war 
there, and the ropemakers of the 
world had to look elsewhere for sup- 
plies of raw material. Sisal, which 
is a remarkably long, tough and dur- 
able fiber, is an excellent substitute 
for hemp, and has now almost entire- 
ly taken its place in the manufacture 
of the cheaper grades of cordage, 
and especially of binder twine. It is 
curious to reflect that the activity 
which established a market for 
American harvesting machinery in 
Russia also contributed materially 
to the development of the sisal in- 
dustry in Yucatan, but such was the 
fact. Wherever the American reaper 
is used binder twine is in demand, 
and as, year by year, the consump- 
tion of this product is increasing, it 
seems highly probable that Yucatan's 
prosperity will continue. 

The cultivation of sisal monopolizer 
the entire capital and enterprise of 
the State. Practically nothing else 
is raised for market, and no attempt 
whatsoever is made in the way of 
manufacturing. The ropewalk opened 
a few years ago in Merida, to manu- 
facture sisal, has been closed as un- 
profitable. The markets both of 
Merida and Progreso, though ex- 
tremely picturesque and interesting, 
offer only a few varieties of fruit and 
vegetables, and these are expensive 
It is said that to-day it would be im- 
possible for a newcomer to purchase 
land and go into the sisal business, 
except far down on the east coast, 
where the danger from Indians is too 



great to justify the risk. In that 
quarter are found logwood, chicle 
and mahogany, a considerable quan- 
tity of which is annually exported; 
but around Merida the broad, level, 
arid country is given over -wholly to 
the cultivation of sisal. 

Sisal is a hardy plant, resembling' 
both the palmetto and the "Spanish 
dagger." The thick, hairy, dwarfed 
trunk grows to a height of five or 
six feet and is crowned by a spiny 
panache of stiff green leaves, each 
separate and distinct from its fel- 
lows. It grows anywhere, no matter 
how dry or rocky the soil. All that 
is necessary is to clear the earth of 
the heavy vegetation that promptly 
springs up in tropical regions, \vhen- 
ever the hand of man is withdrawn, 
even for a short time. A hole rudely 
punched in the hard ground receives 
the shoot, which flourishes vigorous- 
ly whether the rains fall or not, 
whether the sun scorches or the hur- 
ricane blows. Once a year the plant- 
er clears the weeds off the estate. At 
the end of the fifth season the har- 
vest is ready. Only the outer circle 
of leaves is removed the first year, 
and the inner circles are subsequent- 
Iv cut at the rate of one uer annum. 
The plant continues to yield for 
eight or ten seasons, at ' the end 
of which time a tall flower thrusts 
itself up from tlie center, bursts 
into brown blossoms and dies. TS^ith 
it the plant dies also. 

How valuable sisal is may be 
Judged from the fact that the leaves 
are said to be worth 7 cents, gold, 
each in the field. When harvested, 
they are subjected to treatment in 
the- massive machines that British and 
American ingenuity has devised for 
the purpose, and with which nearly 
all of the great Yucatan plantations 
are now equipped. The process is 
simple and expeditious. The leaves 
are macerated and passed under gi- 
gantic iron rollers, which squeeze 
out the juice and leave a handful of 
greenish yellow fiber, dry and flexi- 
ble. This is hung in the sun for 
twelve hours to bleach, and is then- 



Seven Mexican Cities. 



57 



ready to be baled and shipped. About 
70,000 bales of sisai find their way 
to Progreso every month, and are 
thence shipped to the United States. 
Much of this goes to Chicag-o, some 
to Ohio, Illinois and San Francisco, 
and the residue to various other 
places where cordage is manufac- 
tured. The average value of a bale 
of sisal is $70. Progreso claims to 
handle, year in and year out, about 
600,000 bales, valued at $45,000,000, 
silver. It is an enormous and most 
profitable business, out of which a 
hundred princely fortunes have been 
made in less than one-tenth as many 
years. 

The trade has developed so quickly 
and On such a vast scale that it is 
becoming difficult to obtain sufficient 
labor to carry on the gigantic enter- 
prises which certain great "henne- 
queneros," for instance, have set 
afoot. Nearly all the sisal planters 
depend upon the local or Maya In- 
dians and upon the half-breeds, 
called Mestizos. The Mayas do not 
seem ever to have been very numer- 
ous, and while their number shows a ^ 
slight but constant increase, a time 
will probably come when they will 
prove inadequate to all the demands 
made upon them. The Mestizos are 
numerous enough at present, but 
whether ultimately they will not also 
fail to supply the demand is a ques- 
tion of considerable interest in Yu- 
catan. The Mayas are descendants 
of the ancient inhabitants of the 
peninsula, who were old in the land 
when the Conquistadores found tlieir 
way hither and established tlie city 
of Merida. They are a simple, 
humble, affectionate, laborious race, 
distinguished from ofher Mexican 
tribes for the cleanliness of their 
persons and dwellings and for an in- 
tense conservatism, which makes 
them content to live in the species of * 
bondage in which they are held on 
the great plantations. 

The Indians are seen at their best 
on the "ranchos," where they live 
the lives of any other "peons," ex- 
cept that they speak the Maya tongue. 
The men are in most cases strong 
and well built, the ■women graceful 
and good-natured. Their food is 
chiefly corn bread and beans. Beef 
is seldom seen upon their tables, but 
as they are mighty hunters, even 
with the antiquated muzzle-loading 
weapons which their poverty alone 
is able to afford, game is a frequent 
and delicious dish. All classes are 
intensely religious, and the church 
festivals are invariably celebrated 
on a great scale. Though few of 
the Indians can either read or write, 
they have the Catholic liturgy in 
their own tongue, and their devo- 
tions in the little country churches 
are always performed with exem- 
plary zeal. 



Usually the Indians of the interior 
dwell 150 to 200 familit.-s on a rancho. 
This is the average number on one 
of the larger plantations. From 
forty to fifty families is considered 
not a large complement for a rela- 
tively small place. They are com- 
pletely dependent upon the pro- 
prietor, who, it must be added, uses 
his almost patriarchal authority in 
nearly all cases with kindness, con- 
sideration and genuine sympathy tor 
the poor creatures confided to his 
care, as it must seem to him by 
Divine Providence. On nearly every 
one of the ranchos a thatched-roofed 
cottage is assigned to each family, 
and every week a "ration" consist- 
ing of a bushel of corn and beans, 
and a few other simple provisions, is 
dealt out to them. In addition they 
are paid a fixed sum proportioned to 
the number of sisal leaves reaped 
during the day's work. It is cus- 
tomary also to assign each family 
a bit of uncleared land to bring under 
cultivation, and on which vegetables 
for their use may be grown. On 
these little farms they raise corn, 
pumpkin and the few simple fruits 
that Yucatan seems to favor. 

Few of the ranchos maintain 
schools. In such as exist, however, 
instruction is in the Maya dialeot. 
It is curious to find that, though 
clinging tenaciously to the languaga 
of their forefathers, these degenerate 
descendants of a mighty race have 
parted with every recollection of its 
history. Here and there twenty years 
ago might have been found aged 
crones to recall having heard from 
their grandmothers or more remote 
ascendants, something of the tradi- 
tions of the past — perhaps even the 
meaning of some of those extraordi- 
nary hieroglyi)hics sculptured on the 
rocks at Mayapam or Uxmal. But 
these appear to have passed away 
and, with them, the last link that 
connected the Maya of to-day with 
his "shadowy" ancestry. 

The one serious vice with which 
the Yucatan Indians are charged is 
a fondness for liquor. The sisal 
planters haVe found it wise to pro- 
hibit the use of intoxicants on their 
estates. The men, however, find va- 
rious ways to evade this wise and 
salutary regulation, and to procure 
supplies of anisette, the beverage 
to which they are most addicted. 
This liquor is made locally from 
sugar cane rum, and a bottle of it 
can be procured for 38 cents, silver. 
It produces a kind of frenzied in- 
toxication, the victim of which wants 
to fight, and frightful murders, per- 
petrated with the machete, under 
such circumstances are on record. 
Of course, these things happen rare- 
ly, but they do happen. 



58 



Seven Mexican Cities. 



The Mestizos form an interesting 
class by themselves. Many of them 
show only the slightest trace of their 
Indian blood, nor does the fact that 
they belong to a mixed race appear 
to carry with it any special social 
stigma. The men wear a loose cos- 
tume of -white cotton, and when at 
work roll the trousers up tight 
around the thighs, so as to leave their 
muscular legs free and unadorned. 
The women are fond of dress. The 
garment which is most in favor is 
known as the "liipil." This is a long 
loose, shapeless robe of white cloth, 
worn over every other article of at- 
tire, and enveloping the figure from 
the throat to the ankles. It has no 
sleeveg, and the opening through 
which the head is introduced is cut 
square, and edged with some bril- 
liant braid or embroidary. Simple 
as the description sounds, the hipil 
can be made both beautiful and ex- 
pensive. Ordinarily, five or six dol- 
lars suffices to purchase such a gar- 
ment, but cases are known when the 
quality of the fabric, the richness 
of the embroidary and tlie delicacy 
of tlie needlework tlirougliout liave 
increased the price to $390 and even 
more. Any amount of jewelry is 
worn with this robe, and at 
the Mestizo balls, whicli appear to 
be very elaborate entertainments, at 
which all middle-class Berida enjoys 
being present, the girls have been 
known to deck themselves with an 
almost fabulous quantity of gold 
chains and gems. 

Nothing impresses the traveler 
more regarding both the Indians of 
pure blood and the Mestizos, than 
the distinctly Chinese cast of fea- 
tures that prevails among- them all. 
The few scientific observers who have 
pushed their way into Yucutan in 
past times, when the means of ac- 
cess were by no means as good as 
now, have noted and commented upon 
the resemblances between the native 
races and the Mongol. Prince 
Napoleon, who conducted extensive 
explorations in Southern Mexico some 
sixty years ago, collected a vast 
body of data bearing on the sub- 
ject, and came to the conclusion that 
the Western Hemisphere was peopled 
from Asia. Prof. Le Plongeon has 
developed practically the same 
theory. At any rate, the Maya is 
one of the oldest tribes in Mexico, 
antedating the Aztecs, and probably 
far surpassing these bloodthirsty con- 
querors in intelligence and refine- 
ment. The little that is known re- 
garding the history of this fasci- 
nating people has been obtained by 
a patient study of the ruins which 
abound in Yucatan. Some of tlie 
most important of these remains are 
found witliin a day's journey of 



Merida, and are the property of Mr. 
Edward Tlionipson, for many years 
the United_ States Consul in Yuca- 
tan. Mr. Thompson is a man of 
rare attainments, a member of many 
learned societies, and probably the 
greatest living authority on all sub- 
jects connected with the antiquities 
of Yucatan. "Chichen-Itza, the name 
by which his ranch is known, is 
famous for the Maya ruins which 
Stand upon it— a stupendous pile of 
carved stone, including multitudes 
of rooms, courtyards, fortified walls 
and hall-ways, and all the appur- 
tances of a great temple. It is pos- 
sible to proceed by railroad from 
Merida to Tltas. a drive of four 
leagues over good roads bringing the 
visitor to Mr. Thompson's estate by 
nightfall. The entrance is under an 
arch erected at least 1,000 years ago. 
The ruins are kept in perfect order, 
the brush carefully removed, and the 
walls freed from vines. This is not 
the case elsewhere in Yucatan, and 
thus the visitor who desires to learn 
something of the ancient civilization 
of the peninsular can no-vvhere obtain 
the knowledge so easily and accu- 
rately as at Chichen-Itza. Mr. Thomp- 
son's explorations have convinced him 
that Chichen-Itza was erected at 
least 2,000 years ago. In cleaning up 
the ruins he has come across skele- 
tons which, partly on ethnological 
grounds, but particularly because of 
the way in which they were buried, 
he has felt compelled to assign ?:n 
that remote epoch. Chichen-Itza is, 
probably, tfierefore one of the oldest 
ruins in the -world — almost certainly 
the oldest in North America. Could 
all its secrets be read,, what a strange 
and stirring story they would re- 
veal — what tragedies, what comedies, 
and what moving incidents of love, 
loyalty and devotion! — All no-w, alas! 
forgotten in the long accummulation 
of years. 

The population of Yucatan, how- 
ever, contains a larger proportion of 
people of white descent than of In- 
dian or of mixed blood. Most of 
them reside in Merida and Progreso. 
There are very few foreigners in 
either place. The Germans consider- 
ably outnumber Americans in both 
cities. Much of the business outside 
of sisal is in tlie hands of the Ger- 
mans, of whose merits as immigrants 
the people of Yucatan appear to en- 
tertain a high opinion. The Sisal 
planters for the most part maintain 
superb residences in Merida, -where 
they spend the -winter months, visit- 
ing their rachos, their "quintas," or 
going to Progreso for the bathing, 
in the summer time. Life in Merida 
in the season is expensive, judged 
even by our extravagant American 
standards. But in the country, in the 



Seven Mexican Cities. 

-ft' 



S'f 



hot months, much of the formality of 
society is laid aside, and a simple, 
natural, healthful regimen is fol- 
lowed. The quintas are little farms 
many of which are located in tlie 
environs of Merida, and are seen 
from tlie train as one enters the city 
from Progreso. Nothing- more delight- 
ful in the way of residences could 
be desired. The houses, low, ramb- 
ling and adorned with verandahs 
and porticos, are invariably smother- 
ed in flowers. Hundreds of Ameri- 
can windmills left their skeleton 
arms into the sky; for the soil is 
dry, and water for every purpose 
must be pumped from sources far 
underground. Wherever the life-bear- 
ing liquid flows, however, the 
amazing fertility of the tropics is 
evident, yielding lush grass, unnum- 
bered roses, the glassy foliage and 
brilliant scarlet blossoms of the fire- 
trees and scores of other magnificent 
flow^ers. 

Merida is situated tw;enty-four 
miles inland from Progreso. A fairly 
well-equipped railroad connected the 
tvpo places. The journey occupies 
an hour, and most of the route is 
lined on either hand by interminable 
sisal fields. Yucatan, at least in this 
part, is a hilless region, and the eye 
ranges uninterruptedly over the low. 
flat landscape to the unbroken line 
of the horizon. The city itself is 
one of those surprises so often en- 
countered in Mexico. Here, in this 
remote, unfrequented — I have nearly 
said isolated — quarter of the Repub- 
lic, is found its handsomest, cleanest, 
richest town. Fifteen years ago, it 
is said, Merida w^as a dirty little 
place, where a brisk rain often made 
the streets impassable for hours to- 
gether, and caused the passing 
vehicles to plaster walls and pedes- 
trians alike w^ith malodorous mud. 
All this, and a hundred otlier dis- 
advantages, have been removed with- 
in the last five or six years, thanks 
to the efforts of Governor Olegario 
Molina, and to the ample revenues 
which the sisal trade has turned into 
the coffers of tlie State. Governor 
Molina is one of those rare men who 
merit and receive the enthusiastic de- 
votion of their people. He has de- 
voted himself with exemplary zeal to 
the task of modernizing Merida and 
Yucatan in general. So ■'well has his 
work been done that recently, w^hen 
he completed his first term, he was 
re-elected to office by an overwhelm- 
ing majority. He is a man of ex- 
ceptional integrity, has a large for- 
tune made in sisal, and is a lawyer 
by profession. He w^as past middle 
age when called to office, but is full 
of energy still. He has refused to 
accept any salary for his services. 
and out of his own pocket has con- 



tributed liberally to forward many 
public enterprises. In Merida they 
like to tell how he supervised the 
paving of the city himself, dispensing 
with inspectors. Though he knew 
little practically regarding the 
merits of paving material, he wus 
in the habit of going over the work 
in person, and wherever he thought 
the contractor at fault compelled 
him to do it all over again. The re- 
sult is that Merida is paved from 
end to end with asphalt and vitrified 
brick, and the quality of both is far 
superior to anything in New Orleans. 

Governor Molina has also estab- 
lished a model system of street clean- 
ing. A well-equipped station erected 
in the outskirts of the town ac- 
commodates the best modern ap- 
paratus for this purpose. Every 
thoroughfare in the city is kept abso- 
lutely free from every kind of dirt. 

The thoroiighness with which the 
work is done must command the ad- 
miration and approval of the most 
captious. As yet, Merida has no 
municipal sewerage system. The gar- 
bage service is similar to tiiat in 
New Orleans; but as the authority of 
a Mexican Governor is backed up by 
federal troops, it counts for much 
more than a mere American mayor's. 
and consequently the night carts 
make their rounds punctUEllly and do 
their office promptly and effectively. 
There is urgent need of a water and 
drainage system, whicli will obviate 
the use of cisterns, tanks and wells, 
but this important municipal enter- 
prise remains as yet to be accom- 
plished. Governor Molina is at present 
in Europe, enjoying a vacation after 
six or eiglit years of arduous labor, 
and in his aljsence many important 
enterprises are at a standstill. It is 
very likely, however, tliat a public 
official of his experience and ability 
will not long ignore the water prob- 
lem, the solution of which will be 
the crowning feature of his adminis- 
tration. He has already taken so 
many v^^ise measures to rid the city 
of disease tliat this one must long 
ago have presented itself for his con- 
sideration, and if its execution is de- 
ferred, it can only be for the present. 
The task can never be an easy one. 
Merida is situated on a species of 
limestone reef not far from great 
brackisli marshes. Under the city 
itself are found caverns and pools of 
icy water, known to the Indians of 
old, whose remains are every now and 
then discovered in these strange re- 
sorts. Preliistoric workmen con- 
structed steps down to one of these 
underground basins and used it as 
a bath. These curious geological con-. 
ditions will unquestionably make the 
work of the engineers difficult, but 
modern science is equal to even 



60 



Seven Mexican Cities. 



greater undertaking's, and there 
should be in the freaks of nature no 
serious obstacle to the accomplish- 
ment of a necessary enterprise. 

The city autliorities are extremely 
energetic in their efforts to enforce 
the sanitary laws. The promptness 
and efficiency with which cases of 
suspicious fever are handled afford 
an example which might well be imi- 
tated in our own country, whenever 
the emergency presents itself. At 
certain seasons of the year no per- 
son can complain of heahache or 
other symptoms of yellow fever with- 
out being promptly visited by health 
officials and, if the ease seems to 
justify, placed in a screened ambu- 
lance and removed to the city hos- 
pital. Strangers taken ill in the city 
are kept under observation, and 
transferred to the hospital as soon 
as the case seems to require it. The 
hospital is an immense affair on the 
outskirts of the city, and occupies an 
entire square of ground on one side 
of the penitentiary, the Ayala Asylum 
occupying a corresponding position 
on the left. The three great build- 
ings form an impressive group. In 
front a spacious plaza with a foun- 
tain in the center and myriads of 
brilliant flowers affords a spot of 
splendid color. The Penitentiary, 
surrounded by low battlemented 
walls, has an impressive entrance and 
is surmounted by a tower. The 
asylum is a pretty place, with 
spacious grounds bright with blos- 
soms, erected at a cost of $1,000,- 
000 and presented to the city by a 
wealthy planter. Of the hospital the 
casual visitor sees little above the 
high walls but the roofs of the vari- 
ous " wards, but everyone who has 
enjoyed the opportunity of inspect- 
ing it agrees in saying that it is ad- 
mirably equipped, splendidly conduct- 
ed, and so far as the facilities for 
handling yellow fever, a model insti- 
tution. 

The local laws require that all 
ivells and other receptacles for water 
should be screened or oiled so as to 
prevent the propagation of mos- 
quitoes. A corps of inspectors make 
weekly visits, and whenever a house 
is found where these precautions are 
not carefully observed, the work is 
done at the owner's expense and «i 
fine is imposed, in addition. It is 
impossible not to note with pleasure 
these evidences of activity on the part 
of the sanitary officials. Backed 
by Governor Molina's pitriotism and 
energy, this ceaseless fight against 
disease must eventually win. Similar 
efforts, made with less zeal and less 
ample funds, have won elsewhere. 
Surely, a time will come when Merida 
will be as free from pernicious 
disease as any city in the world. 



Even novr the heRlth conditions show 
marked improvement irom year to 
year, and the danger into which the 
foreigner fancies he Avas running 
"When he visits the city in summer, is 
largely Imaginary. 

Although Merida is a gay little city 
in the season, it is reputed to be 
orderly, sober and above the average 
Mexican city in morality. Gamb- 
ling is strictly forbidden, and the law 
is carried out with so much vigor 
that it is not safe to make bets 
openly, even in the club. Cockfight- 
ing is under the ban, for there is 
little interest in this variety of sport, 
as the Mexicans practice it, unless 
the spectator has a wager on the 
birds. Bullfights are, however, both 
lawful and popular. The sale of in- 
toxicants is prohibited after noonday 
on Sundays and national holidays. 
Beer may be sold after that hour in 
the hotels, but the barrooms must 
either close or limit their traffic to 
temperance drinks. There are no "side 
doors" in Merida. For the first i.:- 
fraction of this law the penalty is a 
fine of $50, for the second, imprison- 
ment; and the third entails the for- 
feiture of license and of the bar- 
keeper's chances of ever again enter- 
ing the saloon business in the city. 
The result is seen in the fact that 
comparatively few crimes are com- 
mitted on holidays, and in the general 
good behavior of the population at 
all times. 

The appearance of the city is ex- 
tremely attractive. At the time of 
our visit the general renovation 
through which the town was pxit in 
anticipation of the visit of President 
Diaz a few months ago, was still 
in evidence. Gossip has it that the 
authorities compelled everybody, 
high and low, to paint his dwelling 
afresh; at any rate, we saw nowhere 
any indication of poverty or neglect. 
but on the contrary, street after 
street opened up long perspectives of 
brightly-colored, fresh and inviting 
homes, through the doorways of 
which frequent glimpses were ob- 
tainable of beautiful courtyards 
within. Governor Molina's own resi- 
dence is pointed out to visitors. It 
is one of the least pretentious in 
the city, but the "patio", is a riot of 
tropical flowers, and a place where 
a poet might find his dreams satisfied 
The handsomest section of the city is, 
however, in process of erection. 
The Paseo de"Montejo is a wide and 
stately thoroughfare, well paved, and 
leading from one of the numerous 
"plazas" to the statue of Sierra, the 
poet and jurist, a distance of per- 
haps half a mile. One of Merida's 
rich citizens inaugurated the work, 
laid out the street, and presented 
it to the municipality about ten 



Seven Mexican Cities. 



(A 



years ago. The residence of Senor 
Canton, another local magnate, which 
is being erected at one end of this 
noble drive, is a g'orgeous palace of 
carved sandstone, which would em- 
bellish any great city. Other 
stately homes are now being built, 
representing large expenditures of 
money, taut few of them possess the 
rare artistic excellence of Senor Can- 
ton's truly magnificent home. 

The social life of Merida is largely 
a matter of private entertaining. 
Such noble buildings as this Canton 
residence fill an important place in 
the local scheme of things. With 
the exception of the circus and two 
theatres, the performances in all of 
■which are intermittent, there seems 
a dearth of amusement. A very 
handsome new theater is being 
erected in the middle of the city, but 
much difficulty has been experienced 
in finding a reliable contractor, and 
the task has proceeded slowly and 
expensively, upwards of $500,000, sil- 
ver, having already been spent in 
the work, which is not more than 
lialf done. Ultimately, it is hoped, 
this ornate structure will see every 
year a season of opera, the artists 
to be imported from Europe for the 
purpose. At present, however, the 
one perennial source of entertain- 
ment is found in the con'certs given 
by the military band three times a 
■week in the main "plaza," in front of 
the Jockey Club, the City Hall, the 
Cathedral and other principal public 
edifices. The square is large, well 
paved, and full of flowers. An iron 
kiosk in the center accommodates 
the musicians, who are men of more 
than average talent, judging by the 
concert which was in progress when 
we visited the place. High over the 
spot towers a lofty mast, from which 
Topes radiate to many parts of the 
circle of trees and flowers around 
the kiosk; from these on gala nights 
colored incandescant bulbs are sus- 
pended in incredible numbers, lend- 
ing a touch of fairyland to a scene 
at all times fantastically gay. Merida 
is partial to electric lights, and uses 
them with much taste whenever a 
g:eneral illvimination seems justified 
Governor Molina is said to have 
placed 3,000 lights on the facade of 
his house in honor of President Diaz 
Other equally lavish and splendid 
displays are frequent. In fact, the 
impression which one carries away 
from the city is of inexhaustible 
riches, lavishly spent, and of a 
sprightly, intelligent, luxurious popu- 
lation, now for the first time realiz- 
ing the delight of embellishing 
their sumptuous little town. 

* * • • * 

Progreso, after Merida, does not 
claim much attention. It is, in fact 



merely the port, the commercial an- 
nex, of the sisal-growing region 
around Merida. The population is 
estimated at S,000, the larger portion 
of whom are employed on the docks 
or in tlie warehouses. The local 
firms are engaged in the commission 
business, handling sisal for export 
and importing- the wliole range of 
manufactured articles required by a 
community producing notliing for its 
own consumption. The warehouses 
in Progreso are of gigantic size. 
One firm owns fourteen, all of which 
are practically always full of sisal 
waiting export. Haven, in the right 
use of the word, there is none. The 
harbor is an open roadstead, liable 
to sudden fierce storms, the violence 
of which sometimes compels the ship- 
ping to weigh anchor and put to 
sea. These visitations are, however, 
of infrequent occurence; in ordinary 
weather ships drawing not more than 
eleven or twelve feet of water may 
lie beside any one of the four well- 
built steel piers, where they are 
rapidly discharged. Cranes, tracks, 
steel flatcars, mules and human 
muscle are all employed as occasion 
demands in getting the sisal to the 
ships, and the scene on the wharves 
is always a busy one. One of the 
piers is now being extended to deep 
water by private enterprise. At 
present vessels of large size are 
obliged to anchor two or three miles 
off shore, and cargo is conveyed to 
and from them in lighters, craft 
which are exceedingly picturesque 
under sail, but which are manifestly 
slow and cumbersome. 

Progreso, it is understood, is on 
the list of ports which' the Federal 
Government proposes to modernize. 
As yet, the national treasury has not 
disbursed a cent for public improve- 
ments in Yucatan, and the people of 
the State are justly proud of the 
fact. But the construction at Pro- 
greso of such a harbor as Vera Cruz 
now boasts is far too great an enter- 
prise for them to undertake of their 
own initiative. As soon as the har- 
bor works at Coatzoacoalcos shall 
have been completed, it is believed 
that th^ Federal Government will 
turn its attention to Progreso; and ap 
this must now occur within a short 
time, it is reasonable to expect that 
only a few years will elapse before 
Merida will have a port onen to the 
world worthy of her growing impor- 
tance and wealth. Progreso, however, 
»s not to wait for the Federal 
Government to take action before 
equipping herself with all the modern 
Improvements in her power. It li not 
difficult to see behind this r«*fi<>lution 
the prompting of Governor Molina. 
Thanks to him, a contract 1« •hortly 
to be signed for the paviajr with 



62 



Seven Mexican Cities. 



asphalt of the principal *r.7«^t« of 
the town, and for the improv.iiiient 
of the .water supply and »««v»yftge 
At present, the city depends for v/Ater 
upon tanks, cisterns, etc. The strin- 
gent local layvrs regarding- the screen- 
ing: ' of these receptacles, etc., are 
enforced with as mucli vigor in Pro- 
greso as in Merida. The beneficial _ 
effect of these salutary regulations 
upon the local health is seen In the 
fact that over a year has euipseu 
since a case of yellow fever has oc- 
curred. 

Progreso was founded thii'ty years 
«Rgo by Don Juan Castro, and is 
known by his name, thus — "Progreso 
■de Castro" — on all formal occasions 
Formerly the trade of Merida went 
through Sisal and Campeache, taut 
these ports proving somewhat in- 
accessible, a point was ultimately 
cliosen on the seashore directly north 
of the city, and here Progreso was 
built. It stands on the shelving, 
sandy beach, the character of tlVe soil 
being such that the drainage is 
naturally good, and the sweep of the 
tradewinds blowing nearly all d.'^iy 
long keeps the atmosphere fresh and 
comparatively cool. The streets are 
deep in sand; here and there an al- 
mond tree's varnislied foliage pre- 
sents a pleasant glimpse of green, 
and in the middle of the town a 
typical Mexican plaza affords a pleas- 
ant resort in the evening. The 
people feel a good deal of pride in 
their schools, which, like those in 
Merida, are solidly and handsomely 
constructed of stone. Three have 
already been opened and more are 
building. The curriculum includes 
instruction in ;, Spanish, English 
French and Latin. These languages 
are obligatory even in the lowest . 
grades. Incidentally, it may be ob- 
sierved as evincing the open-minded- 
ness of the people of Yucatan in 
general, that the practice of having 
pupils study their lessons aloud does 
not maintain in the Progresso schools, 
where the methods favored in Ameri- 
can institutions a,re preferred. 

Yucatan is a field to v\'-hich the 
enterprise of the merchants of New 
Orleans might be profitably directed. 
The only serious competition would 
be from New York. The imports 
frorh Europe, which are of consider- 
able value, are restricted to such 
articles as the United States, and 
more particularly the South, is not 
likely to produce. With some small 
modifications of the quarantine sys- 
tem as now enforced at the mouth 
of the Mississippi, New York could 
be eliminated from the problern alto- 
gether. New Orleans is only two 
days' steaming away from Progreso 
w^hile New York is five even under 
the mpst favorable circ^imstances. 



The delay at the mouth of the Missis- 
sippi, however, now rather more than 
offsets this advantage, and makes 
the distance between Yucatan and 
New York actually less in point of 
time than between "Yucatan and New 
Orleans. These facts give a good 
deal of annoyance to the inerchants 
of Yucatan, who strenuously argue 
against the strict health laws en- 
forced at the Mississippi, and point 
out that they impede the free de- 
velopment of what they regard as tiio 
natural trade relations w^ith tlie 
Southern Stales. 

Be this as it may, however, the 
opportunities in Yucatan are very 
great. The principal imports last 
year v^^ere machinery and hard- 
ware, including railway supplies, 
corn, flour and hay, lumber, gro- 
ceries, including preserves, canned 
goods and cheese, druggists' sup- 
plies, dry goods, including ribbons 
thread and the finer cloths, felt and 
straw^ hats, wines and liquors: During 
the calendar year 1904 the total value 
of exportation from Yucatan reached 
the sum of $32,000,000 Mexican. Of 
this considerable sum about 75 per 
cent, or $24,000,000, filters out of thr 
country again, of which four-fifths 
is in payment of imported materials 
one-tenth is used in impost duties 
and' payments of interest, and one- 
tenth, or over $2,000,000, is spent by 
the people of Yucatan in travel 
abroad. Inasmuch as the United 
States consumes 95 per cent of the 
total output of Yucatan it would 
seem that our country should sup- 
ply 95 per cent of the imports, but 
domestic claims and and competi- 
tion here steps in. The other State? 
of Mexico supply cotton cloth from 
the Puebla and Vera Cruz looms, 
cattle from Tabasco and Tampico, 
corn from Guanajuato, bottled beer 
of good quality from the great 
breweries of Orizaba, Toluca and 
Monterey. Shoes, sugar, rum and 
tobacco, both in leaf and manu- 
factured, come from Vera Cruz and 
other States. Twenty years ago most 
of these articles were imported from 
the United States and the foreign 
countries. Each year finds the 
national competition keen and able 
on new articles — an index of Mexico's 
progress. But the United States 
looms up big in the commercial hori- 
zon w^ith her 45 per cent share of 
Yucatan's entire imports. Otlier 
foreign countries are prominent in 
specialties, as France vyith her wines 
Belgium with her rails, etc.. Great 
Britain ^vith engines and general 
merchandise, with Spain next in rank. 
For New Orleans to extehd her busi- 
ness with Yucatan she should devote 
decided attention to the most vul- 
nerable points. As Yucatan produces 



SiEVEN Mexican Cities. 



63 



but little else than sisal, she uses 
much preserved meat, veg-etables, 
fruits and other canned goods, and 
th<e market is capable of great ex- 
pansion. Canneries are now at work 
at various points in Mexico, but as 
yet do not seem to make much im- 
pression on the Yucatan market. 
American canned goods should be 
able to hold their own here for many 
years. The demand is increasing; 
where one can of preserved fruit or 
meat was eaten ten years ago, ten 
are now consumed. 

In machinery the United States 
has a great purchaser in Yucatan. 
Twenty years ago English machinery, 
engines and boilers were seen nearly 
as often as w^ere those of American 
make. Now the American foundry 
and factory products are more in 
evidence. In the matter of wind- 
mills also a good showing has been 
made. On certain other iron pro- 
ducts, notably that of portable rails, 
I am not so well pleased with tlie 



results of our efforts. Yucatan con- 
sumes annually a very large amount 
of these portable rails, and ought to 
be able to buy them of the United 
States, as she does almost all of hep 
standard and narrow-gauge rails. 
There is on record not a single case 
where a United States mill has suc- 
cessfully competed with the Decau- 
villes of Prance and Germany. 

The Yucatan exports for 1905 con- 
sisted of .597,289 bales of sisal fiber, 
$117, .500 worth of skins, and $18,200 
of chicle. During the last ten years 
the single product of sisal has pro- 
duced the enormous sum of $297,- 
000,000 Mexican silver, as income to 
the State and people. New cattle 
ranches are springing into existence 
and the exportation of hides and hair 
w^ill become of more importance. 
Chicle is the milky sap of the sapote 
tree and is used for chewing gum. 
This gum is now exported morp from 
the adjacent icrriiories than from 
Yucatan. 



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